University Police Student Officer Gear?

[DPS_CSO]

Hey, I am having trouble figuring out where I should post this, but I am curious about other campus police departments policies in regard to student officers or civilian field employees.

OC Spray, medical kits, flashlights, or anything else?

Basically, we are overhauling our student officer program, and judging by environment our department is in (contacts and fights with meth-heads and such nightly) I would like to push for student officers to carry something more than a mag-light, but would like a little evidence of other departments issuing oc-spray or something similar to back me.

It just seems foolish to be putting these guys out there, on foot usually without any secondary device (as the streamlights are considered to be a blunt lethal weapon), and while most of us carry knives... I think we could find a better solution.

Any thoughts or PM's would be appreciated.

[taz1802]

You say your College hires students to actively police their own? Is this like OJT in preparation for LE when you graduate? Are the students policing school policies and criminal incidents? Do you carry a radio also? Sounds like a liability issue if you are to respond to a call where weapons are likely and you are unarmed.

New topic for me. Sorry for the questions. Less than lethal tactics is up to the school, personally I wouldn't want students to carry any type of weapon and they certainly would not be called to a criminal incident. If they saw a potential incident they should call the Campus PD.

Please be careful.

[DPS55]

Hey, I am having trouble figuring out where I should post this, but I am curious about other campus police departments policies in regard to student officers or civilian field employees.

OC Spray, medical kits, flashlights, or anything else?

Basically, we are overhauling our student officer program, and judging by environment our department is in (contacts and fights with meth-heads and such nightly) I would like to push for student officers to carry something more than a mag-light, but would like a little evidence of other departments issuing oc-spray or something similar to back me.

It just seems foolish to be putting these guys out there, on foot usually without any secondary device (as the streamlights are considered to be a blunt lethal weapon), and while most of us carry knives... I think we could find a better solution.

Any thoughts or PM's would be appreciated.

I think in Maryland we call them either student auxiliary officers, public safety aide, police aide, or just lot patrol. Arming the students with O.C. spray dosnt sound like a bad idea considering the situation. Of course I beleive in every state you would have to be formally trained and certified to carry it while your working. It sounds like the department needs more police officers to me.

[CragCrawler]

not sure if you guys are a paid program or what but Washington state university offers a volunteer intern program. They go through a week long 70 hour academy put on by the university officers. They get the training that they would get in an actual academy just really condensed and everyone goes through the same academy every year. This includes OC and ASP certification. They also carry cuffs, radio, and anything else the officers carry except a gun and tazer. They are uniformed personnel that are required at least 18 hours a month. 8 must be a ride-a-long, and three must be either booking for the local PD or foot patrol hours that are through the dorms and campus. They do the traffic control for the football and basket ball games and patrol the stadiums to be "presence". This helps free the officers to enforce stadium laws and anything else they need to do. Interns are not sworn so they can not arrest or detain people unless directed by an officer. They ride with the university police and the local PD on a regular basis. The radios they carry are the same frequency as the PD's so they use the same dispatch. They run the driver checks and run the radio when doing stops. Again everything is under the sworn officer, so if the officer does not feel comfortable with your abilities using the radio, cuffing, or getting out on the stops they do not have to let you (but most do because they know you need the experience). Some of the officers will have you do mock case reports and incident reports and then evaluate you on them and tell you how you can do better.

The hiring process is like actually getting hired with an actual department. they begin with a written and then a physical agility test. they then go through an oral board interview that consists of three of the command staff in the intern program and the intern coordinator who is an officer for the university. then they meet with the chief and have a chiefs interview. They do not have a psych eval or a polygraph. They do get a background check on them and fingerprints done.

Overall the program is very good and students do receive college elective credit for the Criminal justice degree.

If you have any questions feel free and ask away.

Here is a website you can visit about the program http://www.wsu.edu/police/intern/index.html

[DPS_CSO]

To clarify,

I think that there isn't one set definition as to what a student officer is or what he/she does on the job.

Where I am at, our job ranges from parking details, to building security, and the most common assignment, patrol. Technically speaking, we are "observe and report" officers, in that we carry a radio and act as extra "eyes and ears" on campus. However, in addition to that, during any call if a public safety officer or police officer requests assistance (this would include an implied request, i.e. an officer goes to ground with a subject or is incapacitated, or if a subject absconds) we are expected to fill the gap, be that jumping in and helping the officer physically, stepping back and providing clear and coherent radio traffic to bring in more officers, etc.

The reason we have begun to look towards OC spray isn't really for the eventuality that we may need to aid officers. We are uniformed, and our earliest patrol shift begins at 1800 and the latest ends at 0330. That is alot of time to be on foot on campus checking dark corners and such. We have a pretty big meth problem around here, and we are regularly contacting (as a dept, CSO's don't contact people) people attempting to steal bikes or break into cars, and a good proportion of the are code 8 with one disease or another. And while we have the streamlights... I personally don't want my only self-defense option with someone like that to be getting physical.

Anyhow, thanks for the advice, and anymore would be welcome.

Especially if any of you work for campus PD's and can back a suggestion up with, "our student officers carry _____ or they don't carry anything for a: reason, b: reason, c: reason."

Thanks.

[DPS_CSO]

CragCrawler, hey thanks.. I was posting when you did, so I only just now read it.

We're a little different here in Oregon...

Our student officers are Community Service Officers, and apart from the in-house FTO program we recieve some First Aid and CPR, defensive tactics, bike patrol training... and that is about it for now.

So, a little different, but I believe that the whole campus police/safety systems are pretty different between Oregon and Washington too.

[CragCrawler]

I should also mention that they do get firearm training, DUI FST Training, defensive tactics, building searches, and SWAT training with ballistics (we play the bad guys during their training ). they also get called out to help local law enforcement for certain things like crime scene security, looking for kids, etc.

There is alot of training that they get!!!

[CragCrawler]

There is also what we call "cougar Security" they are the eyes and ears mostly. the difference is that the interns can stay at crime scenes where cougar security have to leave after they report an incident. They are also paid.

[Ten Six]

Hey, I am having trouble figuring out where I should post this, but I am curious about other campus police departments policies in regard to student officers or civilian field employees.

OC Spray, medical kits, flashlights, or anything else?

Basically, we are overhauling our student officer program, and judging by environment our department is in (contacts and fights with meth-heads and such nightly) I would like to push for student officers to carry something more than a mag-light, but would like a little evidence of other departments issuing oc-spray or something similar to back me.

It just seems foolish to be putting these guys out there, on foot usually without any secondary device (as the streamlights are considered to be a blunt lethal weapon), and while most of us carry knives... I think we could find a better solution.

Any thoughts or PM's would be appreciated.

Our student officers and actual LEO's, armed, and full arrest powers.
http://www.indiana.edu/~iupd/academy.htm

[BikeCop501]

contact UTD (University of Texas at Dallas) PD, they have something similar it seems, they would have info that i dont know about the dept

[DPS55]

Our student officers and actual LEO's, armed, and full arrest powers.
http://www.indiana.edu/~iupd/academy.htm

Wow that looks like a pretty squared away department.

[HailStorm]

Might want to contact somebody with St. Cloud State (http://www.stcloudstate.edu/publicsafety/)
They have a 'Public Safety Officer' program, which is college students going around campus--writing tags, minor consumption, etc. Not sure what else, as I'm not a part of it yet...but from what I hear, they carry spray and they had ASPs at one time.

[beavo451]

contact UTD (University of Texas at Dallas) PD, they have something similar it seems, they would have info that i dont know about the dept

They call them "Guards". If I remember correctly, they carry cuffs, flashlight, OC spray, and a radio.

[toasterlocker]

I worked at my university as a Public Safety officer, and was equipped with OC, handcuffs, flashlight, and a radio. There was talk of allowing ASPs, but that fell through, which I think was a good thing. Although it would have made me feel better to have more options to protect myself, many officers lacked the maturity to even where a uniform, let alone carry a weapon of any kind.

We have a very strange system. Other than administration and office staff, the department was made up of 50 part-time officers and dispatchers, all of whom were full-time students.

While it was a great experience personally, and it was got me interested in law enforcement, I think it is a terrible idea to have a school of over 15,000 students patrolled by students. While I still value my experience, I think the school would have been better served by an actual police department on campus, supported by student CSOs.

[DPS55]

Thats the same way i fel. How can you possibly protect someone else if you cant even protect yourself.