University Department of Public Safety Chief Doug Tripp publicly spoke about his belief that the University should have sworn officers equipped with firearms at the monthly University Senate meeting last Wednesday afternoon.
Tripp gave a brief presentation followed by a Q&A session that lasted for approximately 40 minutes in the Harrington Auditorium at the John E. Jaqua Academic Center. He spoke about the University’s Campus Policing Initiative and how it relates to three Senate bills that have been introduced in the Oregon State Senate.
If all three bills succeed, the framework by which the Department of Public Safety could be become a fully sworn police agency would be established.
The primary bill focused upon is SB 116, which most obviously ties into the creation of a campus police force, because according to its summary it “Allows State Board of Higher Education to authorize university under board control to establish university police force.”
The bill, as Tripp pointed out at the meeting, is only enabling and doesn’t force a university in the Oregon University System to adopt a sworn agency, but it would create the framework under which an OUS university could establish such an agency if it chose to. Tripp was direct and to the point when asked about his feelings about the need for such a hypothetical agency and its need to have firearms.
“Personally I do believe that a police officer should be armed,” Tripp said. “It’s a tool of the trade.”
Tripp said he felt that safety on campus could be improved with the creation of a sworn and armed police agency on campus, and that previous DPS encounters with individuals on campus who were armed and potentially dangerous to students and DPS officers necessitated the carrying of firearms by a potential future University police agency.
When asked a question by ASUO President Amelie Rousseau about the potentially high expense of moving to arm, train and properly equip sworn University police officers, Tripp said he did not feel the expenses would be too straining on the University’s budget, but he did not provide any of his own numbers as to the potential cost of such an agency.
On Nov. 17, the Emerald obtained documents of what appears to be a budget discussion about the training and equipping of a sworn police agency, but financial figures for that budget were redacted.
Tripp said that such a plan for organizing and implementing a budget for a sworn agency would not be immediate and may take as many five to seven years once legislation was passed. However, he added that in at least some areas, changes to DPS in relation to any proposed sworn agency legislation could be coming much sooner.
“It is likely that you would have police officers in the short term,” Tripp said.
Other potential changes to DPS under the introduced legislation includes increased probable cause arrest rights, and the ability for DPS to conduct its own criminal investigations. DPS currently must work with other local law enforcement agencies, usually the Eugene Police Department, in investigating criminal cases. In the future it may be allowed to pursue these cases independently.
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