Arming police on campus

Brandeis votes OK; others debate issue

Lieutenant Pam Curtis, with Framingham State College's campus police force, coordinating security in preparation for Governor Deval Patrick's arrival for a ceremony last year. (Bill Polo/Globe Staff/FILE 2007)

Amid concerns that shooting rampages like those at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University could happen anywhere, some area colleges are debating whether to arm their campus police officers.

At Brandeis University in Waltham, the debate is over. Campus police will soon start carrying guns, probably in June, according to Dennis Nealon, a Brandeis spokesman. The university had talked about it periodically over the past two decades. One of the reasons for the change this time, Nealon said, is the realization that Waltham police don't know the Brandeis campus as well as the officers who patrol it daily.

"Right after the Virginia Tech tragedy, the issue of whether safety officers on campus should carry firearms arose anew," he said. "It's an issue that's been periodically visited over probably 15 or 20 years perhaps. Certainly the Virginia Tech tragedy accelerated the process."

This month, Framingham State College's board of trustees could vote to arm its officers, after both the college president and the campus chief of police voiced support for the move. Several other area colleges, including Babson College and Dean College, are discussing the issue.

Ken Corkran, director of public safety and risk management at Dean College, said the Franklin Police Department is only three to four minutes away, but administrators are still looking at perhaps arming police on campus.

"We do recognize there will be instances where we need an immediate response, and that's what we're evaluating at this point," he said.

At Framingham State, a nonbinding referendum on April 16 found a fairly even split among its students. The vote was 263 in favor of arming campus police and 246 against.

Only one student gets a vote that counts: Jake Oliveira, the student member of Framingham State's 11-member board of trustees, which is scheduled to vote on the arming proposal on May 15.

Oliveira said he is "leaning against" supporting guns for campus police officers, but won't decide until the formal vote.

"There is a clear distinction if a police officer is breaking up a party and doesn't have a firearm and a police officer that does have a firearm," said Oliveira.

The police will get respect either way, he said, but the presence of guns "tenses things up for a lot of people."

He also noted that campus police at both Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois were armed.

Last year, a student killed 32 people before shooting himself at Virginia Tech. Earlier this year, a gunman killed six people, including himself, at Northern Illinois University.

Sarah Charland, president of student government at Framingham State, said she is in favor of arming police.

"I just think because we live in scary times, and with all the past campus violence that's gone on in the last two years, we should try to protect ourselves as much as we can," she said.

The Framingham State College Professional Association, which represents about 170 faculty members as well as several library employees, voted unanimously against arming campus police.

"They didn't feel that the administration had necessarily made a strong enough case for arming the police," said John Ambacher, the union's outgoing president. "We just felt it needed more justification."

Brad Medeiros, Framingham State's chief of police, proposed arming his force because campus tragedies have proven that every second counts, he said.

"You have to be able to engage these individuals immediately and neutralize the threat," he said. "The more time they have without opposition, without dealing with a law enforcement response, the more time they have to cause injury or death."

His officers are already highly trained, said Medeiros, but will get more specialized firearms training if the proposal passes. They attend the Special State Police Academy and, like all other law enforcement officers, must submit to a background investigation, psychological assessment, and oral interviews before being hired.

"College policing has come a long way from years ago," said Medeiros. "They are regular police officers you'd see in your town, doing the exact same job."

If the trustees vote to arm campus police, training this summer would include 40 hours of basic handgun training and 36 hours of what is called active shooter training, which addresses dealing with a gunman loose on campus, he said.

"Come September, it would be business as usual, and nobody is going to notice the difference in the style of policing we use," said Medeiros.

Parents, students, faculty - everybody seems to be debating these days whether campus police should be armed, according to Ron Guilmette, vice president of the Massachusetts Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, which has members from 69 campuses, big and small, private and public, around the state.

The shootings at Northern Illinois and Virginia Tech were watershed moments for anyone looking at the issue, he said.

"That brought the whole issue to the table," said Guilmette. "There's a lot of conversation."

Of his group's member campuses, 31 have armed police forces and 38 are unarmed.

"It can happen on any campus, that's the lesson learned," he said.

Lisa Kocian can be reached at 508-820-4231 or at lkocian@globe.com.