Harvard Security Guards Went Years Without Radios at Dozens of Campus Posts | News | The Harvard Crimson
Each time John F. Carbone Jr. started a shift, he said, Securitas asked him to confirm he had the equipment needed for the job: keys, a work phone, and a working radio.
But for years, the 18-year Harvard security guard and union steward said he has signed in at posts across campus the same way: “no radio, no radio, no radio.”
The problem stretched across much of Harvard’s undergraduate campus.
As of June 15, only 19 of the 49 radios required at Securitas Security Services posts across the Faculty of Arts and Sciences were operational, according to interviews with more than 15 Securitas employees and visits by The Crimson to more than two dozen posts.
Thirty of the 45 sites staffed by Securitas had no functioning radios, leaving Guards assigned to residential Houses, labs, and academic buildings without one of their most basic tools for emergency communication.
The gaps were especially stark in undergraduate housing. Just four of the 14 radios required across Harvard’s 12 Houses, DeWolfe, and Cronkhite were present when The Crimson conducted its inventory.
Two days after The Crimson completed that inventory, Securitas distributed radios to all 14 residential posts, according to a person familiar with the matter and two longtime Securitas Guards. By Friday, nearly all FAS sites had a working radio.
Securitas had possessed working radios since at least August 2024, according to the person, who said the radios issued to guards cost about $1,000. Securitas did not respond to a request for comment on the radio shortages or the timing of the distribution.
Harvard contracts with Securitas to staff security posts across academic and residential buildings. Guards said radios are essential during fast-moving incidents, allowing them to reach the Securitas control center, other Guards, and the Harvard University Police Department without relying on individual phone calls.
Without radius, campus-wide communication becomes far slower. If HUPD needs to reach every Securitas Guard on campus, it must go through the Securitas control center at Harvard, which then calls each post individually, according to Carbone.
“If there’s an issue that transcends the entire FAS and 45 to 50 buildings, they would have to call 25 to 30 guards,” Carbone said. “It’s ineffective.”
An HUPD spokesperson declined to comment, citing a longstanding policy against discussing security measures and equipment.
Carbone said he first raised concerns about the radio shortages to Securitas leadership in May 2025 after he learned that more than a dozen sites did not have radios. He raised the issue again in January, asking why the problem had not been fixed.
“I haven’t seen anything. In fact, what I’m hearing is it’s significantly worse,” Carbone said he told management. “What are we doing?”
Carbone said he was brushed off when he raised the concern.
“We’re at considerable risk here,” Carbone said. “And I explained why I felt we were at risk. The senior manager that was there said, ‘we understand what you’re saying. We care about our employees. We care about doing our job. We’re working on it.’”
At several posts, guards said Securitas’ replacement of broken or missing radios was inconsistent. Some posts reported radio issues that went unresolved for years, according to four guards.
At Quincy House and Adams House, radios had been dysfunctional for a month or less, according to three guards. At others, like Kirkland House and Mather House, radios were missing for upwards of three years, the guards said.
Several classroom and lab buildings also lacked working radios, including the Science and Engineering Complex, the Chemistry laboratory complex, Zimmer Hall, and Memorial Hall. The Chemistry complex, which houses four labs, went at least three years without a working radio, according to two Securitas guards.
At Lowell House, a replacement radio came on May 19 after months without one, according to the person and three guards. Earlier that day, a student living in Lowell reported that a man who was not affiliated with the University followed her into her entryway, covered her mouth, and attempted to push her inside.
The man fled the scene after the student yelled for help and people in nearby rooms entered the hallway.
The Securitas guard working in Lowell at the time of the assault did not have a radio, according to the person and the three guards.
The man, later identified as 31-year-old Arthur O. Krogman, was arrested one week later and charged in connection with the Lowell House assault, an earlier incident outside Peabody Terrace, and a reported breaking and entering at MIT on the same day. He has pleaded not guilty.
For Carbone, the Lowell incident underscored concerns he said he had raised for more than a year.
“A guard is not going to have a radio, and it’s going to result in some unfortunate circumstance,” Carbone said. “Something will happen, and all hell will break loose, because people just aren’t attending to the issues that they’re responsible for.”
Still, two longtime Securitas guards said they avoided raising radio issues with management because they feared retaliation.
In 2022, former Harvard security guard Walter J. Terzano filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board after he was suspended for organizing a protest during contract negotiations with the union representing more than 300 campus guards. Terzano alleged that he was unfairly retaliated against, and Securitas and Harvard settled the case in 2024.
Carbone, for his part, said he continued raising concerns about the radios because he was concerned about student safety above all else.
“I don’t want anything to happen to anybody,” Carbone said.