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Prof Nicols says no to armed campus police

10/3/2012: I can think of many ways the $1 million or so cost of the conversion to sworn (and apparently soon to armed) police could have been better spent. But apparently our administrators cannot. This letter to Pres Gottfredson is posted with permission of the sender:

Dear President Gottfredson 

I want to register my concern for what I consider a dangerous transition to an armed police force. 

I am in matters of public safety conservative and believe that officers do need to be properly quipped to deal with a dangerous world, but I have never bought the argument that a university police force needs to be armed.  Indeed, it is most effective when it can act as an intermediary between the university and the community.  That advantage, and it is one that serves the interests of both the university and the the community, would be seriously compromised or lost if the UO officers start to carry weapons. 

I have had regular appointments at many universities in the US and in Germany, and most function quite well by cultivating a good relationship with the local police force, but they do not try to duplicate efforts. 

I do realize that many higher administrators must be telling you otherwise, but if you listen to the faculty you will quickly come to see that there are many among the faculty who have very significant reservations about the course and costs of this transformation.
Indeed it is very hard for me to see any advantage that an armed ‘police’ force would bring.  Moreover, I [and I believe others] see many disadvantages and costs that will accrue from such a decision. 

J Nicols: Professor Emeritus  of History and of Classics 

One particularly good anonymous comment:

I do not think that the discussion should be about sworn police officers vs. public safety officers. UO had for years sworn police officers on campus and there is still a college station for the Eugene Police Department on 13th Steet. UO just did not extend the contract with EPD a couple of years ago and now the administration pretends that there is no way back. (I am pretty sure UO can sell the new SUVs to our old police friend who sold us the used Ford police troopers a while ago.) 

The question is whether UO should have this “in-house” with full responsibilities, oversight, and risks or contract with well-experienced law enforcement entities providing sworn officers on campus. OSU does not have a sworn university police department. But their Public Safety department has a contract with Oregon State troopers for these extra services on campus. OSU has no intention to change it. Why does UO? Is UO so much more in danger? Comparing UO to other PAC12 schools with University Police such as UW, UCLA or Berkeley is just silly. 

Frances Dyke told UO and Salem that in-house security could do the job for less money (but not substantially less). I think we can at least question this given the tremendous investments in cars/trucks, new and additional leadership, new “street credible” uniforms, training, guns, etc. — and UOPS’ proposal for a bomb sniffing puppy. I am pretty sure campus’ security could even increase with a UO SWAT unit but such a unit has a substantial price. (I hope that this does not add something to their shopping list.)

Whenever I saw one of the new SUVs or the 4×4 I wanted to take my key and scratch “I could have been a dissertation fellowship” into the paint. (Something I would never do to any other car!) These expenditures are just a pure provocation for anybody who cares about affordable education, support for faculty, (graduate) students and staff, and academic infrastructure. It appears as nothing else than pure rent seeking by UOPS. 

I would appreciate if there would be an update about the “cost savings” that were promised (if Frances Dyke “lied” she should apologize in public to UO and Salem) and if there were any other motives — covering up weed smoking athletes/students in the university neighborhood, subsidizing the athletics department by providing in-house security at sports events instead of costly EPD/county officers, increasing some egos of the leadership, or improving the relationship with EPD because of “rowdy” undergrads in the university neighborhood by covering the area. All these motives might be taste but at least there would be a rationale for the nonsense and money burning. It may make the provocation a bit more bearable. 

Otherwise the UO admin should just stop the nonsense and gain some credibility – providing resources for UO’s mission.

27 Comments

  1. Anonymous 10/03/2012

    I’m bothered by the expenditure, the cover up (Dyke was lying, Moffitt is covering the lies), and also that coincident with arming the police is the restriction of concealed carry on campus by others.

  2. UO Matters 10/03/2012

    Campus crime rarely gets violent. When it does, it’s typically troubled students who are more likely to see armed police as an opportunity for suicide by cop than as a deterrent. This was all a stupid decision, driven by Frances Dyke and Doug Tripp. Both are now gone. Moffitt still won’t give an honest explanation for Tripp’s mysterious sudden departure. But the SUV’s and guns now have a life of their own, because no one in charge is willing to admit that any UO administrator has ever made a mistake.

  3. Anonymous 10/03/2012

    Can anyone name a sworn police department, on a college campus or in a city with a population of over 20,000 people, that is unarmed? I don’t think there are many. How many disturbed students killed themselves by having armed campus police shoot them? I bet it is a lot less than the amount of people killed on a college campus by an active shooter. Get over it. Guns are just one of the tools used by any police officer, regardless of where they work. It is used to save lives ( the officers or the person being threatened) at the moment when nothing else will work. When the crap hits the fan, do you really want to wait for an EPD officer to show up, not knowing the area and buildings too well, while having an unarmed police officer standing around doing nothing, because he doesn’t have the proper equipment to respond to the problem? Give them what they need to do the job correctly. They are a police department, treat them as such.

    • Anonymous 10/03/2012

      The issue is not having access to armed officers, but the advisability of having an armed UNIVERSITY corps of officers.

      Many thoughtful and insightful colleagues will have different perspectives on this issues, but I suspect that many would prefer to see the UO offices as intermediaries. Indeed I would much rather see our officers spend more time walking a beat and talking to constituents than sitting isolated in their Crown Vic cruisers

      Should there be a major crisis would not the state troopers and EPD be brought in to assist?

      Again, and expressing my own thought only, I do not dispute the need to have access to armed response in times of need, but would prefer to see it contracted with the state police and or the EPD. That would release our officers to integrate more constructively with the community they are to defend. ~jn

    • Anonymous 10/03/2012

      Statistics Dog

      this is is from the usdoj.gov and its somewhat dated so I suspect the numbers have gone up

      “According to the 2004-05 BJS Survey of Campus Law Enforcement Agencies, 74% of colleges and universities with 2,500 or more students used sworn officers. Nearly all public campuses (93%) used sworn officers and 86% had armed patrol officers. Less than half of private campuses (42%) had sworn police forces, and 30% had armed patrol officers. The majority of the private campuses with 10,000 or more students had sworn, armed police forces.”

    • Anonymous 10/03/2012

      Non-Stats Dog

      To me the issue is not guns but competency and training. For instance, no one would ever give a dog a gun as dogs are clearly untrained and completely incompetent. I trust the State police far more than I trust campus cops to correctly handle an emergency – it easy to overreact if you have never been in this situation so I think all of this has raised the probability of a stupid incident happening on our campus. At least this dog is now more awake and vigilant as I sniff my way through campus.

    • Anonymous 10/03/2012

      Yes, competency in an emergency is a real concern. Campus security tackled and beat a science graduate student as he was entering a science building at night to check on an experiment. I shudder to think what could have been the outcome if they were armed.

    • Anonymous 10/03/2012

      Do you know what actually happened that night or are you just saying what you think happened? I don’t think anyone other than the people involved know the true story. I know that UOPD will release reports if they are asked for by the people involved. If you were involved, ask for the report and then post it here. Show us all what happened and how you were wronged. I would be interested in knowing what actually happened. In fact, I think anyone who feels that they have been cited or arrested wrongly by UOPD officers should request a copy of their report, and then post it, as well as if they went to court, and what the outcome was. Just saying it may clear some things up.

    • uomatters 10/03/2012

      If someone sends me a date and location, even approximate, I will make the PR request.

    • uomatters 10/04/2012

      and until they do, I’d suggest that “tackled and beat” comment be taken as unsubstantiated rumor.

    • UO Matters 10/05/2012

      Still no date or other information from the person who posted the “tackled and beat” comment above. UO Police spokesperson Kelly Mciver has told me he is willing to provide the police report if he knows what to look for.

      I go through a lot of effort to document what I post on this blog, and I do not appreciate people using the comments to post nasty stuff about UO staff – and that includes the UO police – unless they are willing to help me disprove or substantiate those comments.

      My guess is that the comment above is just not true.

    • Anonymous 10/05/2012

      How many reports are in the files that involve tackling someone? Is this a common event on campus?

    • Anonymous 10/05/2012

      The student graduated. I saw the bruises and heard his side of the story at least. It was more than a year ago… my impression was that the student was thinking about legal action, but heard nothing since. Sorry to not provide anything more concrete.

    • uomatters 10/05/2012

      I just need a name or a date and location. The name will be redacted from the police report by UO. If they don’t redact it you can be sure I will. You can email this in confidence to [email protected]. Thanks.

    • uomatters 10/05/2012

      Thanks Anon for providing me this information. I have requested the incident report from Kelly McIver and I will post it when I get it.

  4. Anonymous 10/03/2012

    I don’t think many people are aware that university police officers receive the same training as EPD or OSP. We get officers who know campus and have the same police skills without creating a delay in response time.

    • Anonymous 10/03/2012

      Dog says

      I am fully aware of the training requirements and procedurs. There is no substitute for experience.

    • Anonymous 10/03/2012

      Police departments hire brand new officers, most with no experience, and send them to an academy. Once they graduate, they then learn by working on the streets with training officers. The trainees have no experience in real world situations, yet they are expected to work and learn as they go, regardless of who they work for. In a class of 35 police recruits, they will go to work for Tribal Police, Springfield PD, Eugene PD, Oregon State Troopers, UOPD, etc. Your comment makes it sound like the ones that go anywhere but UOPD are better and have more experience, when the opposite can be true. If UOPD is hiring officers that have been working as officers at the University for any length of time, doesn’t it stand to reason that they would be the ones with more experience than their recently graduated counterparts, both in the knowledge of the campus community and how to deal with people? Or would you rather they hire Police Officers with “experience” that have been doing the job for years in cities, may be burned out, and not have the knowledge of how to work on a campus? Which would you prefer? I know my answer.

    • Anonymous 10/04/2012

      Dog Says

      I simply want an initial response that doesn’t inflame the situation and escalate the crises.

      None of any of this “stands to reason” in my view.

  5. Anonymous 10/03/2012

    The UC Davis cop who did that pepper spraying? Sworn officer, trained, and the legal settlement cost the university $500,000 or so.

  6. Anonymous 10/03/2012

    Fishwrapper sez: Think about this for a moment: Do you really want the EPD as the ones who swoop in as things get out of hand?

    Having a sworn police force on campus, with the campus population as its primary focus will, in the long run, be beneficial. This has been proven across the country many times over. The people and manner involved in the creation of this department at UO are, sadly, a joke, and that has caused a lack of confidence that distorts perception and thinking on this issue.

    Yes, training will be critical. This starts at the top, and trickles down, and in that regard, the department was kneecapped from the start. The student population of the campus is much different than the general population, and a campus police force trained to deal with this population is the best way to go. If it were up to me, and it’s not, the training would be less about sitting in a Crown Vic driving around the perimeter, and more about being on foot, on the paths, and part of the campus fabric.

    To be clear: A campus police force is not inherently bad, but the implementation of the plan at UO has been flawed.

    There is a big difference between a security patrol and a patrol officer, and one of those differences includes the tools of the trade. The tools of the police trade do include firearms, so get over it. I’d rather have campus officers going into a crowd than EPD going into the same crowd, all things being equal.

    And for every UC-Davis pepper spray incident, I am confident that you will find thousands of other confrontations resolved in a much less violent manner. Indeed, it has been my observation (and, admittedly, personal experience a long tie ago) in a college town that the campus police officer is generally more responsive and considerate to the student population in moments of crisis than the “townies.” For that matter, I am certain you can find incidents of non-gun-toting security personnel wreaking havoc in their own isolated incidents. In either case, these are the exceptions, not the norm.

  7. Anonymous 10/03/2012

    We still don’t have anything honest from Jamie on why she fired Doug Tripp, do we?

  8. uomatters 10/03/2012

    We don’t. Tripp is the 4th straight DPS Director fired under mysterious circumstances, without a credible explanation to the campus, or even in private to student and faculty leadership or to the relevant UO committees.

    But their website says “The University of Oregon Police Department (UOPD) is a community-oriented and trust-based policing agency.” Bullshit.

    • Anonymous 10/04/2012

      Through and through. UO Senate should ask for the back story at Gottfredson’s visit… if he shows.

  9. Anonymous 10/03/2012

    I do not think that the discussion should be about sworn police officers vs. public safety officers. UO had for years sworn police officers on campus and there is still a college station for the Eugene Police Department on 13th Steet. UO just did not extend the contract with EPD a couple of years ago and now the administration pretends that there is no way back. (I am pretty sure UO can sell the new SUVs to our old police friend who sold us the used Ford police troopers a while ago.)

    The question is whether UO should have this “in-house” with full responsibilities, oversight, and risks or contract with well-experienced law enforcement entities providing sworn officers on campus. OSU does not have a sworn university police department. But their Public Safety department has a contract with Oregon State troopers for these extra services on campus. OSU has no intention to change it. Why does UO? Is UO so much more in danger? Comparing UO to other PAC12 schools with University Police such as UW, UCLA or Berkeley is just silly.

    Frances Dyke told UO and Salem that in-house security could do the job for less money (but not substantially less). I think we can at least question this given the tremendous investments in cars/trucks, new and additional leadership, new “street credible” uniforms, training, guns, etc. — and UOPS’ proposal for a bomb sniffing puppy. I am pretty sure campus’ security could even increase with a UO SWAT unit but such a unit has a substantial price. (I hope that this does not add something to their shopping list.)

    Whenever I saw one of the new SUVs or the 4×4 I wanted to take my key and scratch “I could have been a dissertation fellowship” into the paint. (Something I would never do to any other car!) These expenditures are just a pure provocation for anybody who cares about affordable education, support for faculty, (graduate) students and staff, and academic infrastructure. It appears as nothing else than pure rent seeking by UOPS.

    I would appreciate if there would be an update about the “cost savings” that were promised (if Frances Dyke “lied” she should apologize in public to UO and Salem) and if there were any other motives — covering up weed smoking athletes/students in the university neighborhood, subsidizing the athletics department by providing in-house security at sports events instead of costly EPD/county officers, increasing some egos of the leadership, or improving the relationship with EPD because of “rowdy” undergrads in the university neighborhood by covering the area. All these motives might be taste but at least there would be a rationale for the nonsense and money burning. It may make the provocation a bit more bearable.

    Otherwise the UO admin should just stop the nonsense and gain some credibility – providing resources for UO’s mission.

  10. uomatters 10/03/2012

    More on “suicide by cop”

    The nightmare scenario is of course something like VTech. I’m not an expert, but from the rather comprehensive wikipedia page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre the campus police there were armed, and the shooter committed suicide just before they got to him. The policy recommendations from the many subsequent investigations centered around basic reforms in mental health policies and implementation.

    UO’s conversion from DPS to sworn and armed police officers is a distraction at best. This money and effort would be better spent on mental health and counseling efforts.

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