Both the head of the University’s Department of Public Safety and the ASUO Executive oppose a bill introduced into the State Legislature which would give campus security officers the same privileges as police officers.
Senate Bill 135, introduced at the request of a group of campus officers, would allow the Oregon University System to commission officers to carry firearms and also make arrests. The University plans to commission some of its officers in April, but currently the commissioning would only allow officers to make probable cause arrests and stop and frisk suspects.
Tom Fitzpatrick, director of the University’s Department of Public Safety, said he could not support the way in which the bill was introduced into the Legislature.
He said he supports campus security officers carrying firearms, but not the manner in which officers have broached the subject.
“This was not the time and the place to approach this issue,” he said.
Fitzpatrick said he did not support the idea of employee groups imposing their will on their employers, and he couldn’t understand why officers persisted with the issue when the OUS has repeatedly shown it is opposed to changing its campus’ security-officer status.
Campus safety officers from Portland State University went to the State Board of Education last year with the same request but were voted down, and the OUS has shown no intention of supporting the recent bill.
In light of this, Fitzpatrick said he would wait to support arming campus officers until all the university administrations decide to make the move.
“I’m a team player,” he said.
ASUO President Jay Breslow said the bill didn’t have much of a chance of passing without the support of the education board, but despite not expecting the bill to pass, he said he was still concerned about the concept behind it.
“Something like this should definitely have student input,” he said. “It would be really dangerous, [and] it would really affect the way public safety officers work with students.”
He said there was an “intimidation factor” that would increase with officers carrying firearms that could make situations more dangerous then they need to be.
While Breslow understood that officers at PSU are in a more urban environment that could be more dangerous, he said their desire to carry firearms could induce a “domino thing” that would result in officers carrying guns on all campuses in the OUS.
Mike McCambridge, associate vice president for finance and administration for Oregon State University, oversees the OSU Department of Public Safety. He said he doesn’t support the bill because the school is “satisfied with the structure we have.”
OSU has a joint operation between campus security and Oregon State Police, which McCambridge said allows campus security to stay out of violent situations that may require firearms.
“Our public safety folks work more on the non-violent side of the safety situation,” he said.