Senate Bill 0099 – Sen. Alting:
Provides that university and college police may exercise their police powers in any part of Indiana.
Currently the jurisdiction of university police is limited to property owned or occupied by the university, including adjacent streets. That jurisdiction can be expanded by agreement with the Sheriff or Chief of police for the territory into which additional jurisdiction is sought.
[tags]SB99-2007, public safety[/tags]
Is this wise? How do training requirements differ for university and college police officers relative to those in the direct employ of a state, county, or municipal police agency?
What’s the motivation for this bill?
I think the training requirements for university police are the same as for other law enforcement agencies. Sen. Alting, representing the Lafayette area, is almost certainly acting on a request involving the Purdue Police Department.
I don’t really know what the specific motivations are. The police departments involved are qualified enough, but I would be concerned about overlapping jurisdictions and about such a broad grant of jurisdiction. Giving the Purdue PD at least a theoretical right to exercise its powers down in Milan (a completely random example) seems like it might be problematic.
I shudder to think of some of the IUPD roaming statewide. I recall parking in longterm during a blizzard. Apparently when the snow melted, a tire was touching a line so they wrote a ticket. And again the next day. And the next, until I had four tickets for the same (non)infraction, all of which were thrown out as they gave the excuse that they were “practicing writing tickets that day”. Yeah, give THAT guy a gun and a map of Indiana.
I believe that the cadets who had not graduated had arrest powers. Maybe I’m wrong.
T,
I had the same thing at IU as well. 7 tickets for ONE infraction.
The problem isn’t the overlaping jurisdiction. All other police have power over the entire state, so an officer from Milan can pull you over in Gary.
The problem is that you are giving statewide power to a group of rookies that do not have as many vets slowing them down. Rookies come out of school seeing everything as black and while, just like T being over the line by an inch. The vets teach them to look at the spirit of the law, and to point out that giving people a little room for mistakes makes them more likely to cooperate when you REALLY need their help (solving a murder, etc…)
Most other departments have a few rookies and a large number of seasoned officers. The schools have it the other way around. In the end, I think it will just be an irritation more than anything.
Actually, here is a good example that I was personally involved in. One of our officers arrested a guy off-campus (three blocks away) for DUI. This guy was toasted. Well, our former chief was basically “retired on duty.” For whatever reason, he never got the contract signed with either the city police chief or the Sheriff. This guy ended up getting off even though the arrest was done by an officer with 10 years on the job and the exact same training as any other state/city/town/county officer. This really upset me because many of our officers worked off-duty in the city and any arrest that were made could have been called illegal and we could have been sued. Thankfully, the entire department would have backed an officer and that officer could have turned around and sued the university and our chief for not informing us of the change in jurisdiction (we did have the contract in prior years). Put it this way, if I am heading out of my jurisdiction/county for training in a marked police car and I see a drunk driver, I can do nothing about this. All I can do is call 911 and hope a local officer shows up to stop the drunk before they cross the center line and drive head on into your family.