Chief Anthony Campbell’s tenure includes overseeing the Yale Police Department’s response to pro-Palestine protests in spring 2024.
Raleigh Adams
Original Reporting Editor, The Buckley Beacon
Chief Anthony Campbell (YC ‘95, DIV ‘09), who has led the Yale Police Department (YPD) since 2022, is departing to join the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) in early January.
The development was first announced on Thursday in a schoolwide email to Yale University students by Duane Lovello, Head of Public Safety. A similar announcement was made to Harvard’s student and faculty bodies, which confirmed Campbell’s tenure at HUPD will begin on January 5, 2026.
Lovello’s announcement did not mention Harvard by name, and instead said that Campbell had “accepted a new position outside of Yale University.”
Campbell first joined the New Haven Police Department in 1998, and was promoted to Chief of Police of the city in 2016. In 2019, he joined the YPD, ascending to the role of chief in 2022. In April 2024, Campbell oversaw the department’s response to pro-Palestine encampments on Beinecke Plaza and around the Schwarzman Center, during which over 40 individuals were arrested. Campbell will replace former HUPD chief Victor A. Clay, who resigned in May following allegations of department mismanagement.
Upon joining the YPD in 2019, Campbell also taught a course at the Yale Divinity School (YDS) entitled, “The Changing Face of Community-Police-Ministry Relations in the Twenty-First Century.”
In his Thursday email, Lovello thanked Campbell for his leadership of the department. “His dedication to both Yale and the City of New Haven stands as a testament to service beyond self, and I admire his devotion to his faith, his family, co-workers, friends, and community,” read Lovello’s email on November 13.
Campbell’s transfer to HUPD comes as Yale students continue to express concern over violent crime in New Haven. A recent poll commissioned by the Buckley Institute found 74 percent of Yale undergraduates either “strongly agree” or “somewhat agree” that crime in New Haven is a “serious issue,” including 71 percent of self-identified Democrats and 78 percent of Republicans. In September, a daytime robbery occurred in front of Pauli Murray and Benjamin Franklin colleges just short of 10 a.m.
More recently, a Halloween night shooting just a few blocks from Old Campus left an 18-year-old woman dead, with three others sustaining injuries. The university confirmed that no students, faculty, or Yale affiliates were harmed in the shooting.
Campbell will remain in charge of the YPD until January 2, 2026, at which time Lovello will temporarily assume management of the department until Campbell’s successor is named.