Page 4 -- The Michigan Daily - Thursday, September 8, 1988

ISSUES

Bill may

arm

campus

security

BY ANNA SENKEVITCH
A legislative bill pending in the
Michigan House of Representatives
would, if passed, enable the Univer-
sity to create a second armed police
force within the city of Ann Arbor.
The bill, approved by the state
Senate last October, would permit
the University to give public safety
officers the power to detain, arrest,
tnd issue citations - privileges now
restricted to the seven Ann Arbor
police patrols and two city detectives
hired by the University to investi-
gate campus crimes..
LEO HEATLEY, director of
the University's Public Safety and
Security Department, said the law
would most affect his officers deal-
ing with medium- to low-priority
crimes, including misdemeanors
such as disorderly conduct and tres-
O$sing. Deputized public safety of-
tpprs could make arrests at the
scenes of these "lesser" crimes with-
:oit Ann Arbor police officers pre-
sent, Heatley said.
"If there's a major crime on cam-
pus, then the Ann Arbor police
(would still) be called," Heatley said.
Meanwhile, the very concept of
;deputization has raised controversy
on both local and state levels.
ANN A R B O R City Coun-
cilmember Jeff Epton (D-3rd ward)
strongly opposes deputization, for
which he said the University has
lobbied "fairly hard."
Epton said he believes police or-
ganizations are "paramilitary."
"To have two such operations in
the same city accountable to two
different government bodies at least
doubles the risk of negligent or...
discriminatory police and citizen in-
teraction," he said.
"The solution is not to create an-
other police agency," Epton said,
"(but) to initiate and maintain a
pressure to change existing poli-
cies."
THE PRESENT campus secu-
rity arrangement is inadequate, Heat-
ley said, because the Ann Arbor Po-
lice Department is too understaffed
to limit its nine University-hired of-
ficers exclusively to campus cases.

said, "'lesser' crimes can't be fit in.
I'm paying 100 percent (salary) for
him, and he doesn't have the time."
HEATLEY SAID he is frus-
trated by his public safety officers'
inability to act quickly and effec-
tively at the scenes of crimes.
"When the public safety officer is
already on the scene," he said, "why
not give (the officer) the authority to
do his or her job?"
At the moment, most reports of
crime at the University get sent to
City Hall, Heatley said, "And some-
body goes through that pile... who's
not a University person... who does
not have the University's interest."
But former Ann Arbor City Ad-
ministrator Godfrey Collins thinks
an independent University police
force would actually hinder campus
crime investigation.
"If you have a smaller group, it's
not as easy to resolve problems," he
said. "A larger (city police) depart-
ment has more capabilities." Collins
referred specifically to the city po-
lice's crime lab facility as one re-
source to which deputized University
security officers would not have ac-
cess. He said he also believes crimes
can be more effectively and effi-
ciently dealt with by a single police
unit rather than two separate ones.
COLLINS, who at a May city
budget meeting slashed Police Chief
William Corbett's request for 82
new police personnel to just two,
said the city will meet the Univer-
sity's growing need for police pa-
trols if the University is willing to
pay for more officer help.
"We would be glad to talk to
them about changes in the contract,"
he said. "There's no problem about
hiring additional people."
Regent Thomas Roach (R-Saline)
strongly advocates deputizing Uni-
versity public safety officers. "We do
want to prevent rape and other
crimes," he said. "There's nothing
like a police presence to deter crimi-
nal activity."

"The Ann Arbor Police Depart-
ment is a fine police department," he
said. "The only problem is that they
have about the same staffing they
had 15 or 16 years ago, and the
city... is just growing by leaps and
bounds."
Two days prior to the bill's Oc-
tober passage, the Michigan Student
Assembly passed a resolution stating
the group's anti-deputization stand.
The document, circulated to Senate
and House members, encouraged
state legislators to vote against the
deputization bill.
MSA President Michael Phillips,
an LSA senior, said he opposes the
bill because he believes the Univer-
sity could utilize such power to en-
force its own rules, which Phillips
said "are not constitutional... The
city of Ann Arbor doesn't have to
follow them."
ANN ARBOR Police Capt.
Robert Conn said the police use

their own discretion in dealing with
campus incidents, which usually in-
volve making arrests and transport-
ing arrestees, but they rarely enforce
University rules.
David Cahill, aide to Representa-
tive Perry Bullard (D-Ann Arbor),
said Bullard is against the bill.
"With regular police, citizens who
are policed can elect the officials
who control the police force," Cahill
said. "That can't happen on campus
because students can't elect the re-
gents."
The House Colleges and Univer-
sities Committee so far has received
approximately 800 letters concerning
Senate Bill 339, said Tom Lawton,
aide to committee chair Burton Le-
land. Lawton estimated only half the
letters support the bill.
But Cahill said neither he nor
Bullard expects the bill to reach
House hearings. "Four out of five
bills introduced in legislative session

die, " he said. "It's been over a year
since 339's introduction."
CAHILL ADDED that Bullard
also opposes deputization because a
campus police force would create
"the impossibility of defining a
boundary between the city and the
University."
Heatley does not foresee any
problems with confusion over the
two jurisdictions. "There wouldn't
be a boundary," he said. "I have my
side of the road, (city police officers)
have theirs, and a lot of times we
work together."
Heatley emphasized that only one
of the five divisions housed in the
Public Safety Department - public
safety officers - would be eligible
for deputization if the bill is passed.
"Only my people that have been
trained... (and have) graduated from a
police academy and are certified by
the state of Michigan as police offi-
cers," he said, "These are the re-

ROBjIN 4 LVNAK~oaily
quirements (for officer deputiza-
tion)."
BUT CAHILL said Bullard
worries about the effect of a depu-
tized campus security force on Uni-
versity student freedoms. "He doesn't
want Harold Shapiro or Fleming or
whoever to have their own political
police force to use against pro-
testers," Cahill said.
Conn observed, "We do not have
that many isolated incidents... where
the community is going to go to
hell because something takes place
(on campus)."
Heatley said his hain concern is
for medium-priority crimes. While
all of the approximately 3,000 seri-
ous crime reports received by Public
Safety last year were investigated by
the police, lower-priority University
incidents such as misdemeanors are
often neglected, he said.
"A lot of times, with (a Univer-
sity-hired) detective's caseload," he


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