A bill that authorizes the creation of armed and sworn police departments in the state’s public universities will likely take precedent in this year’s Oregon state Senate session.
Although the bill does not yet have a name, nor has it been filed or taken out of committee, Oregon state Sen. Floyd Prozanski, who serves Oregon’s 4th District, which includes Eugene and Springfield, said that in general terms he is still a proponent of a bill that would allow for the creation of a sworn and potentially armed police force on campus.
Such a move to create a sworn agency on campus would likely center around the pre-existing Department of Public Safety, which is not currently composed of sworn police officers but of state-certified uniformed private security officers. Certified private security officers are not allowed to carry weapons under Oregon state law. Other restrictions placed on DPS personnel include the inability to write circuit court citations in Lane County or hold suspects overnight.
University officials have also endorsed any future legislation that would provide for the creation of a sworn agency, and in January of 2010 established a UO Police Department Working Group, which according to its mission statement is “to take the necessary steps to achieve Oregon statutory changes that would allow for the creation of a University of Oregon police department.”
According to documentation sent in an e-mail from the University Vice President for Finance and Administration Frances Dyke to DPS Chief Doug Tripp on Jan. 26, 2010, the working group was authorized to spend money from within the DPS budget to advance these desired statutory changes.
The group was also enabled to work with members of the Oregon University System and elements within the state legislature to advance these goals.
A campus policing statute FAQ form available on DPS’ website covers a wide variety of reasons that DPS sees a need to become a sworn agency, and largely insists that the University is one of the few large schools in the nation that does not already have a sworn agency. Indeed, the University and Oregon State University are the only schools in the Pac-10 that do not currently have their own sworn agencies.
Oregon State currently has an agreement established with the Oregon State Police to operate on that campus. Up until last June, the University maintained a contract with the Eugene Police Department to maintain four officers on its campus on a semi-permanent basis. A staffed EPD kiosk is still located on East 13th Avenue within site of the University.
Assistant DPS Chief Carolyn McDermed also said she supports such a bill. However, she also said the creation of legislation that would allow for sworn officers on Oregon university campuses wouldn’t necessarily result in those officers being armed with lethal or non-lethal weapons like Tasers.
McDermed could not identify a single sworn police agency in the state of Oregon that was not equipped with weapons of some kind, outside of the agency at Oregon Health Sciences University.
SB 658, a piece of state legislation signed into law in 2009, did allow for a limited sworn agency at the Portland/Beaverton-based OHSU, but did not allow these officers to carry lethal weapons. Tasers are permitted.
Based on information gathered from a public information request released to the Emerald on Nov. 17, the University Public Records Office did release documents that may have addressed internal University discussions concerning the liability issues that could face the University in an instance of an inappropriate use of force by a potential sworn and armed campus police force.
The documents returned to the Emerald were heavily redacted and leave room for interpretation.
According to the documents, an internal memo did pass between University President Richard Lariviere’s Faculty Advisory Committee on Oct. 17.
It is not clear if these conversations involved Lariviere directly, or only Provost Jim Bean who was acting president at the time because of Lariviere’s surgery and his subsequent recovery. Francis Dyke was also named in the memo.
The only faculty advisory committee member mentioned by name in the documents was English Department Professor Warren Ginsberg. Ginsberg declined to speak about his involvement in the memo and cited confidentiality restrictions placed on him by his membership on the FAC.
McDermed said that a discussion about allowing DPS to use weapons on campus had not been discussed, but the documents obtained through Nov. 17 public records request show a date of Oct. 17.
In addition to the FAC meeting, another set of documents released on Nov. 17 seemed to indicate proposed budget items, but with the actual cost and funding for those items redacted.
Items discussed included salaries and Public Employee Retirement System hazard pay benefits for police and fire personnel. The document also included a line about “Equipment/Uniforms/Firearms/Ammunition.”
“We haven’t specifically talked about whether arming is what we want to do yet,” McDermed said. “There are steps that have to be taken.”
McDermed said she was not familiar with either of these documents and could not comment on them.
As the process that may one day establish a sworn and potentially armed police agency at the University moves forward, McDermed has promised transparency in the process.
She said DPS plans on hosting a series of meetings sometime in February to address any community concerns in the matter.
She also insisted that any change that comes out of the 2011 legislative session would not have an immediate impact on the University, and the development of any sworn agency would be at least five years down the road.
The redacted budgets seem to indicate that there was discussion of budgeting and financing a sworn agency for seven years, but in which year this hypothetical budget began is unclear.
University Public Records Officer Elizabeth Denecke has promised to provide more transparent documents about any internal sworn agency discussion once the state legislative session is in full swing.
“We anticipate the legislative process will proceed, and a bill will be dropped by January, at which time costs will be elucidated in some form in support of the legislation,” Denecke said in an e-mail statement.
What can be concluded ultimately is that over at least the past year, the University is seriously considering how it can develop a sworn police agency if legislation allows it to do so.
The possibility that this future agency would be armed with firearms or Tasers has been in discussion between administrators and DPS.
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