Here we go again, with the spoon-feed of lies pushing cops-are-the-problem pablum as if we are undeveloped brains deficient in distinguishing for ourselves what/who the real troublemakers are in our society.
The statement quoted in our title comes from a shoes-on-the-ground student, on the heels of the University of California—Davis administration announcing “defunding” the campus police force, despite the widely circulated message that “defunding the police” was always nothing more than a political train wreck for a certain party.
As well, it seems foolish for institutions to banner lack of safety and protection traditionally afforded by professionals otherwise known as law enforcement officers.
With this news, criminals are emboldened antagonists and students are vulnerable targets.
From this UC-Davis tact we have yet another buzzword, essentially implying campus cops are unnecessary in traditional life-saving roles, instituting the word “repurposed” to express their wildly absurd reasoning behind obsoleting sworn police positions (three vacancies will not be filled) and basically civilianizing others.
What do they plan on having repurposed state-certified cops do instead? Administrative assignments pertaining to data analysis and accreditation endeavors. This, while also trumpeting Obama’s “Task Force on 21st Century Policing.”
Yeah, I don’t like to use the O-word either, but they compelled doing so because of their outlandish maneuver to stay grounded in utter nonsense birthed by a highly dubious former nation-leader who was surely not police-friendly.
Penned by colleague Steve Pomper, the National Police Association published a book titled “The Obama Gang: How Barack Obama, through his post-presidency foundation, assembled, launched, and wages the new assault on American law enforcement.” The title is self-explanatory, serving as a segue regarding the figureheads at UC-Davis adopting Barack’s dung-heap of logic related to law enforcement and how it should go, showing his/their lack of experience, among other doomed, illogical premises.
As you may recall, the gist of Obama’s ideations on modern law enforcement practices includes lowering standards for prospective police recruits. After writing those words implying mediocrity among future cop roles, I need not say much more on the foolhardy notion.
While we extend accolades to Pomper for his comprehensive analysis on Obama-era improprieties, now seems like a great juncture to handhold his recent school resource officer-related article published by NPA, denoting the rather expected about-face by school boards “refunding” campus police contingents, returning to the necessary reality of safeguarding children from predatory types always seeking to hatch active-shooter scenarios and any other unimaginable mayhem.
While UC-Davis abrogates responsibilities to safeguard their students and secure everything on the campus compound, lurkers possessed of evil mindsets pay attention and salivate over such letting-our-guard-down news.
I hate to make it seem sensational but having been around handcuffed diabolicals seated directly behind me in a police cruiser, proudly boasting all the spoils they adore(d) inflicting on innocents, reductions in any public safety anywhere compels candid dialogue concentrated in anti-police idiocy. One confounding point with respect to US-Davis deciding to defund campus police is the fact that current and prospective students (and their parents) alike choose study environments which have public safety pros active 24/7.
Whether the student who identified the nonsense clearly reasoned “there is no reason at all to decrease the number of officers” factored in the personal compensations paid to UC registrars is unknown, but it is a practical consideration. I gotta believe anyone studying anything, making the grade to enroll, transcends intelligence to soundly underscore economics and the atmospheric costs to eventually tout the rite of passage known as a degree…achieved in a professionally sanctified environment.
One look at the UC-Davis Police Department site had me wondering how many smiley cop faces were turned upside-down with news of “defunding” and “repurposing” their force.
(Photo courtesy of the UC-Davis Police Department.)
Mere cursory digging unearthed an array of traditional and specialized programs and services delivered to the student and faculty base by a forward-thinking police force whose door is always open for those in need and to usher in positive change toward more robust community relations.
In a CBS Sacramento News report titled “UC Davis PD CORE Officer Hopes to Build Bridge Between Campus Community, Police Department,” campus police Officer Jena Du said, “I can listen to [constituents’] concerns and see what we can do about it while dressed down [in plainclothes attire], without that visual of uniform and all of my equipment right out on display that can put people a little more at ease even knowing I am an officer.” Pros and cons to that premise (Officer Du patrols in an unmarked electric-operated smart car topped with an amber utility beacon), but campus cops meeting people in the middle is the gist.
Even though US-Davis execs implicate cops as troublesome, the police force having a Safe Ride unit which drives around campus domain and its periphery picking up intoxicated students and delivering them to dorms or student-patronized apartment complexes… counters the university narrative.
(Photo courtesy of the University of California-Davis Police Department.)
I found zero evidence of university execs performing this vital service, only campus police staff.
Generally, I also found a few law enforcement agencies employing police services in the form of safe rides in clearly marked vehicles for all to see, advertising the presence of vital agents of security and preservation.
Working midnight shift through most of my police career, I had many occasions whereby I came across a staggerer way too close to traffic and/or a danger to self from falling. When most citizens are snug and snoozing, cops are out there looking for loose ends, as expected. Situating safe rides home avoided staggering catastrophes, not only preserving lives but also precluding tremendous monetary impacts.
For instance, the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office (SRCSO) in Florida has a novel beat on potential perils inherent in intoxicated individuals considering getting behind the wheel of an automobile.
(Photo courtesy of the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office.)
Accompanying the above bifurcated cruiser image was the following message: “Ride in a taxi, $24. Ride in the back of a Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s cruiser, $10,000. Choose your ride. Don’t drink and drive!”
Given that always-applicable reminder by the SRCSO, one would think parents of students attending UC-Davis would heed the financial grenade and potentially tragic consequences of drinking and driving, thus embracing campus cops safely boarding and rehoming their son or daughter (saving roughly $10k toward tuition instead). It’s a stark factor with zero meaningful rebuttal. LEOs know it all too well, symbolizing why we appreciate having them out there in the first place: allies against alcohol-rooted tragedies.
Law enforcement agencies use all manner of programs and equipment to score successes in public safety provisions, including driving woozy students home safely, like UC-Davis patrol officers have been doing. The untold numbers of lives saved by such a unique program/service is a paramount feat, one which UC-Davis admins evidently ill-consider.
Much of the material I read regarding the UC-Davis decision(s) seems predicated on flimsy Obama principles and virtue signaling from safe space corners.
A UC-Davis group calling themselves “CopsOffCampus” is mentioned as heralding cop-free environs. They might be immortal, too (read on).
Recently, an anti-law enforcement cadre on campus decided to graffiti traffic-related signs and advertise their life’s goal on a giant-sized cut-out in the shape of a pig, spraying on it the telltale words, “We Will Outlive Policing.”
One UC-Davis student and member of Campus Reform appeared on Fox News, befuddled by the notion of scaling back the police force, her main concern being her own safety and that of thousands of cohorts.
Seems some students care not to work together. Such a sad statement, using immature, derogatory terms to express dissatisfaction with law-and-order principles carried out by public safety professionals. Like we keep reiterating with utter vexation: Cops are the problem?
At least UC-Davis PD has Officer Du expending efforts and diplomacy toward enhanced community relations: “I can give them a chance to air their frustration but also get some answers. Because often, it’s not necessarily that people are upset with what’s being done, people are upset because they don’t understand why things are being done or why things aren’t being done.”
In addition to Officer Du’s community relations work and the expansive provisions offered by campus cops, other fundamentals are also worth exploring.
Checking Off the Boxes
As a parent of one offspring studying at a university and another analyzing universities in the process of selecting where to study peacefully without undue distractions (crime), it is logical to review the pros/cons toward choosing the most optimal campus at which to broaden brain cells and life horizons. In that context, “public safety” is a categorical no-brainer with respect to life-sustaining measures, tranquil environs, and peace-of-mind principles unwaveringly accorded by campus cops buttoning up the academic package. A parent’s delight, to say the least.
I wonder what UC-Davis parents think about the university administration’s decision to lessen the safety sphere and, by extension, increase perils of nefarious sorts traipsing upon university property, full knowing that detection is highly unlikely without trained eyes and ears attached to brave souls relegated to preclude crime and godawful catastrophes.
I suspect astute parents will heed this factor and make appropriate decisions for their sons/daughters.
From drone footage and photos, it seems UC-Davis is a mostly open-air academic compound affording free-reign roaming. That does not bode well for overall security, easily accommodating criminals preying on gobs of potential victims in one place (target-rich). Reducing or abolishing campus cops is equivalent to inviting miscreants into a vulnerable community. Repurposing campus cops for administrative roles surely confines them to a cubicle and forfeits eyes/ears out and about campus grounds.
What about university insurance? General insurance policies in place to ensure against liabilities and losses is certainly necessary to operate a public entity upon which thousands of people and automobiles traverse. Incontrovertibly, any reduction in safety and security not only impacts the policy costs (passed on to customers: students and their parents) but betrays how much university administration values its student base—essentially their purpose for existence.
An accredited police agency status sought by UC-Davis PD means they will have achieved state and/or national high marks substantiating a progressively top-notch force of professionals carrying out a constitutional mission equitably. From what I could discern, the accreditation goal has been in the works for a few years now.
UC-Davis Police Chief Joseph Farrow offered the following regarding his agency and accreditation: “While I understand the accreditation process can be challenging, I believe we all want the same thing; to be a national model in campus law enforcement, with a reputation of having sound policies and procedures, staffed by well-trained, professional members. I strongly believe we can accomplish that together through accreditation.”
A police accreditation initial undertaking is largely identical to subsequent recertifications conducted every few years, costing thousands and requiring inordinate hours across many months/years to succeed with a gold star. UC-Davis having gone that route and seeking to renew frankly flies in the faces of police defunders and abolitionists, showing how astute, mindful, and objective critical thinkers measure and declare a police entity wholly capable and compatible.
Returning to the above-mentioned Obama-era 21st Century Policing model adopted by UC-Davis administrators, I find it more appealing that the campus police force comprises sworn cops who were formerly among the “police cadet” corps of civilian-status police associates working in ancillary capacities. Moreover, they were students at one time also, just like Officer Du. Now, doesn’t that sound like a much more viable option over Obama’s “lowering standards” initiative?
(Photo courtesy of the UC-Davis Police Department.)
Talk about solid recruitment and retention in an era when those very facets are seemingly insurmountable challenges for law enforcement agencies nowadays. If they were permitted to hire, UC-Davis has candidates right under their nose.
Addressing a request for transparency, the UC-Davis police designed and implemented an online source called the “Transparency Dashboard” which is “one response to our community’s desire for more comprehensive data regarding campus safety. This is a work in progress, centralizing our existing reports, logs, tables and other data.” So, requests for crime data by a student base needing to know about difficult and dangerous police work and the stats…somehow resulted in defunding and reassigning the same crimefighters from whom they want aggregate data proving worth, value, and safety mechanisms?
The Dashboard has eight webpages, three PDFs, and one Interactive Data site, rather empirically publishing ample data, some of it police-centric, such as the department budget. Talk about a clearinghouse!
It is imperative that cops on college campus or Anywhere, USA is a given with respect to crime suppression and criminal apprehension. Ideally, law enforcement presence is a foremost preemptive element any of us can ill-afford to lose. Lest we forget, the UC-Davis police are also responsible for safety/security of the on-campus “world-class hospital.”
While anti-cop voices declare outliving law enforcement and detangle twisted mindsets, UC-Davis police personnel will continue emphasizing logical, legitimate actions from bona fide cops addressing violations of state statutes committed by lawbreakers —student or not— and mainstay the worth and true value in life-sustaining efforts on behalf of tens of thousands. Business as usual…
As Officer Du said in May 2021, “We want our community to feel that we are here to offer support to them in the ways that we can and in ways that are a better fit to them.”
Overall, it appears UC-Davis PD staff is doing everything possible for the campus, doing their own homework so that students can concentrate on theirs, including the naysayers.