Still think an on-campus shooting could never happen at ASU? At University of the Incarnate Word, a Catholic college in Alamo Heights, TX, an officer shot and killed a student after a struggle following a traffic stop. According to CNN:
The incident began when Cpl. Christopher Carter, a police officer with the University of the Incarnate Word in Alamo Heights, saw Robert Cameron Redus near campus “driving erratically at a high rate of speed” Friday, a university statement said.
“Carter was obligated to pull the suspect over to ensure the public’s safety,” the statement said.
Redus pulled into an apartment complex, and Carter followed, mistakenly reporting the wrong street location to police dispatchers, which prompted his call to be routed from the Alamo Heights Police Department to its San Antonio counterparts, the statement said. This caused a delay of several minutes in response time.
“During the wait for assistance, the officer tried to restrain the suspect who repeatedly resisted,” the statement said. “During the struggle, the officer attempted to subdue the suspect with his baton. … The baton was taken by the suspect who used it to hit the officer.
“The officer drew his firearm and was able to knock the baton from the suspect who continued to resist arrest. Shots were fired.”
We checked out the crime statistics for the university to see what sort of issues their department deals with; for 2012, the university had a total of 16 alcohol arrests, 3 drug arrests, 1 weapons violation, and 2 burglaries. THAT’S IT. If an officer-involved shooting can transpire at a university with relatively NO crime, it can definitely happen at a university with a significant amount of crime (ASU). The question ASUPD should be asking isn’t IF it will happen, but WHEN. Additionally, ASU needs to actually plan for some sort of major event, whether it is a shooting, or an active shooter scenario instead of focusing on stolen bicycles.
None of us were there on scene, so nobody really knows what exactly happened. If this was an over reaction where lethal force was avoidable, although technically legal, then I could easily see this happening at the ASU police department.
Rookies are easily excitable. We have a lot of rookies when it comes to actual police experience. We are slated to get a number of new guys who will be fresh out of the academy getting trained by officers with relatively little actual police experience.
A ten year ASUPD only officer is a rookie in the eyes of the law enforcement community. Some city departments consider their people rookies through the five year mark and they handle far more police related issues than ASUPD.
You have an PD administration that can’t keep veteran officers unless they are retired and here for their kid’s education. ASU born and bred officers are either stuck here because they’re lazy, intimidated by the policing challenges they will face elsewhere, or have background issues that keep them from completing processes.
Even the new guys we get are leaving as soon as they are picked up by outside agencies because they see the writing on the wall. There is no future for them in this agency because of the people running it. How many more supervisor positions can you create to buy loyalty?
Loyalty paid for is the cheapest most unreliable way to earn it and ASU simply can’t compete with the other agencies in the PHX metropolitan area. It’s about more than money, it’s about people, personalities, opportunity, team, support, and respect. The appearance of public safety is a priority at ASU, but the reality is significantly different. The university steadily expands as the police department steadily shrinks, how is this not a recipe for disaster? We truly have been blessed, so far.
The odds of something going wrong only increase with a band of slightly experienced teaching the inexperienced. Anyone who says differently doesn’t know what they are talking about. The only saving grace is the relatively tame policing environment.
I get the feeling lawyers will be looking over the posts here as they file negligence lawsuits against the university for mismanaging the mismanagement at the ASU Police Department.
If they contact enough former employees they will have no problem finding witnesses to provide all the information they could ever need.
As a previous poster said, we weren’t there, so we don’t have the facts of this case to real say this or that about it. If you are used to being in potentially dangerous situations you are much more in control and aware of your situation as it unfolds. The benefit of practice and repetition is on your side. When you know people who work the bad areas of cities their stories give you a real perspective.
Unfortunately, once our staffing issues go from code red danger back down to crisis we will have a lot of new guys put into a tame policing environment waiting for something to happen. I hear reports of guys that have been here for years getting really excited over little stuff and laugh. It’s just the nature of the environment.
If this could happen a small off the map university it’s only a matter of time before ASUPD faces a similar one. We don’t know the facts in this case, but nobody wants to be in a circumstance like this. I wonder what kind of staffing they had? Did he have backup or is he like any number of us that are on satellite campuses alone without backup? Keep your fingers crossed for surviving the how could this happen incident if it comes.
We have the largest university in the middle of a very gun friendly state, so a lot of us are surprised we literally dodged the bullet. We have no excuse for how unprepared we are to meet this threat. We have an armory full of rifles with hardly anyone trained to use them. Great for tours, bragging rights, but practically useless like our big empty station building.
Heaven forbid someone better trained and better armed (easy button) comes against us because we have an exclusive gun club instead of a firearms training program. A club that turned away firearms instructors who had years more experience from other agencies in exchange for rookie pals they could induct.