In the months after former Department of Public Safety Officer Michael John Bonertz struck a bicyclist with his patrol car, ripples of opinion have circulated throughout the campus community about how DPS interacts with the public.
According to an internal DPS report following the incident, Bonertz said he was trying to cut off a fleeing Donald Gariepy — who had been doing tricks on his bicycle, a campus offense — but he hit him instead. The report concluded the officer committed misconduct during the incident.
Many students on campus are critical of both the incident and DPS.
“I think that the whole incident was ridiculous,” junior Marielle Florendo said. “Any law officer — police or DPS — should know better than that.” She felt the officer should not have hit the cyclist regardless of the situation.
Some students are more skeptical about what really happened that night, however.
“I was surprised,” junior Leslie Kimes said. But “I think without being there we can’t really be sure what happened and why.”
ASUO Campus Outreach Coordinator Shannon Tarvin said incidents like Bonertz’s case illustrate that DPS is not a police force and should not act like one.
“We feel that DPS is primarily a safety entity and should focus on protecting and serving students even if that means calling in for assistance on enforcement matters,” she said in an e-mail.
Even without the incident casting a shadow over DPS’ image, the department hasn’t always elicited positive reactions from the student population.
“You don’t hear a lot of good talk about DPS from students,” Florendo said.
Sophomore Mike Thurber, who lived in the residence halls last year, said he didn’t have any bad experiences with DPS personally, but knew a lot of people who had “issues.”
“DPS kind of struck me as somewhat bullish” Thurber said. “They didn’t seem like they liked students, but I don’t think that holds true for all of them.”
He added that there were some officers who were very kind.
DPS Operations Lieutenant Herb Horner said most of his relations with students have been positive, adding that students’ reactions to DPS may depend on the nature of DPS-student interaction.
“It depends on the time of the day and how much they’ve had to drink or smoke or whether they’re sober,” he said, adding that he knows the officers are not always popular.
Horner said he feels the Bonertz incident will not permanently affect DPS’ image because every department has “personnel issues.”
Despite the varying opinions on how students feel about DPS, some students have ideas about how to improve the department’s relationship with campus.
Florendo said meetings between officers and the student body might help to revamp the DPS image, adding that officers should be more personable and not act superior to students.
Kimes said she thinks a lot of DPS services are unclear to students, and people place emphasis on the negative aspects of the department. She said if there was more focus on the positive services that the department offers, it might improve the relationship between officers and the student body.
Some of the current concerns about the DPS-student relationship will be discussed at ASUO’s annual Public Safety forum on Oct. 3O, Tarvin said. She added that DPS officers’ ability to issue citations, which was authorized in the summer, may be another potential source of tension between students and officers.
“This is something of concern because we students should not have to feel threatened within our own space,” she said.
Horner said DPS is trying to have more officers patrol on bicycles, hoping that this will make it easier for students to interact with them.
“Just being out there and approachable,” he said. “I’m hoping that it will give students a more relaxed feeling about approaching our officers. They don’t bite.”
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