It wasn’t all that long ago that one of the gravest fears on campus was an active shooter. The fear was largely overblown, as the likelihood of its happening was minuscule, yet preparations and drills became all the rage. After all, if it did happen, there was no excuse for being unprepared to face it, to stop the shooter, to save the lives of students.
Now that’s forgotten in lieu of the priority du jour.
Portland State University is disarming its campus police. The university announced police will not carry firearms while on patrol but will be authorized to carry “less-than-lethal” weapons, including Tasers.
Yes, those are the same Tasers that resulted in the occasional death that caused it to be recharacterized from “non-lethal” to “less-than-lethal” to accommodate those who died of Taser’s (now Axon, after all the “difficult” press it received when people who weren’t supposed to die kept dying) resurrected diagnosis of “excited delirium.”
For the most part, a Taser is a much better choice of weapon for use on campus, since dead students don’t pay tuition. But that’s not the reason for the change.
“The continuing tragedies across our country demonstrate the disproportionate impacts and unacceptable loss of life that policing has on Black people and people of color,” Portland State president Stephen Percy and Board of Trustees chair Greg Hinckley wrote in a message explaining the decision.
“Over the past few weeks, we have listened to many voices across our campus,” the message continues. “The calls for change that we are hearing at PSU are ringing out across our nation. We must find a new way to protect the safety of our community, one that works to dismantle systemic racism and promotes the dignity of all who come to our urban campus.”
It’s unclear whether Portland State College police had a problem with shooting black students, although there’s neither evidence to suggest it nor any statement from its administrators implying it. Rather, the move seems to be in reaction to other cops in other places using force against black people, so they want to “dismantle systemic racism” too by stripping their police of guns that weren’t being used to harm much of anyone.
If someone comes onto campus with a weapon and starts shooting, what do they plan to do about it?
If someone comes onto campus to harm one of their students, what do they plan to do about it?
Not to make this a joke, but you don’t bring a Taser to a gun fight. Some will indulge the fantasy that there will be guns locked away in a box somewhere, and if they need them, they’ll just go to the box, unlock it, pull out a gun and, boom, problem solved.
If an active shooter is picking off random students one by one, how many die while this fantasy plays out?
If there was a problem at Portland State College with their cops using guns to harm black students and students of color, then that would compel action to address it. What that action would be would depend on the cause of the problem, whether bad hiring, training or perhaps a toxic atmosphere of racism within the ranks of the college cops. But there’s no indication that any such problem exists, that the Portland State cops are anything other than wonderful officers who treat students with dignity and courtesy.
This isn’t to say that the problem of an active shooter will happen, or is more likely to happen now that Portland State’s police are unable to swiftly do much of anything about it. But this reflects how the tune has been lost in the name of the moment’s passion. There was no problem with their police being armed with guns, but that didn’t mean they shouldn’t be unarmed in support of concerns having nothing to do with them.
And yet, when they need a gun, should a horrific tragedy happen on campus that demands a cop to be armed, they will have to face the consequences of this decision. Sorry, dead students, but we meant well.
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Grandpa Richardson.
“You need the right tool for the job, boy.
You don’t use a butter knife for a screwdriver.”
I went to Fordham at Rose Hill in the Bronx. The security guards were not armed. There were no problems. I believe the head of security did have a gun, but no one else. If there was a major problem they would just call the police. I think that was a smart play. Security guards don’t have the training or screening to justify having access to weapons. I may not agree with the Portland State College rationale, but I think it’s a smart policy.
Nothing is a problem until it’s problem, Ray. As fascinating as your personal experience may be, it’s really not relevant or responsive.
Portland State University police are actual, certified police officers. I know this for fact, so not the same as your “untrained security guard” conjecture. The university provides extra training for their role on campus, consisting of the following:
Historical Education of Marginalized Populations
Implicit/Unconscious Bias
Title IX/Sexual Violence Awareness
LGBTQ Awareness
Mental Health Awareness
PSU Policy
Disability Awareness
Micro Aggression
Apparently campus cops did have a problem with shooting Black men: “Portland State University (PSU) says it will disarm its campus police force, more than two years after officers from the department shot and killed a Black man who was trying to break up a fight close to campus.”
Perhaps the Portland State campus cops are backstopped by city of Portland cops in the event of an active shooter.
If the problem is with their officers, the solution is addressing what went wrong. Yet, the rationale for taking away their weapons neglected to raise the shooting as a reason, they didn’t take their officers guns away in the years following the shooting, it was off campus and didn’t involve a student, and one incident doesn’t necessarily reflect a systemic problem rather than an outlier.
As for Portland cops, they’ll get there eventually. No doubt whatever exigency is occurring will just wait until they arrive.
You need to use smaller words, because the obvious just doesn’t seem to be getting through their tin foil hats.
If campus police need to be armed to keep the peace in a dangerous university environment, it would be true that the hiring, training or behavior of the officers would need to be addressed. Is that the case here? Up until 2014 PSU police weren’t armed.
In the announcement link you provided, there is a YouTube video of the PSU police chief stating that his officers will patrol without firearms. His rationale is very BLM at 0:00:51 “I’ve examined my own experience dealing with police as a civilian and I must tell you: things must change. Here at Portland State I am so proud to be a part of this historic, ground-breaking way of doing police work.”
If the PSU police chief thinks campus police can patrol effectively without firearms (and he probably still has officers who served unarmed before 2014), why not? I’d think he has better information than any of us to compare the risks of armed criminals to armed policeman at PSU.
That someone says that does not mean he thinks that. It’s more likely he thinks he wants to keep his job.
You caught a whiff of someone saying what he needed to say to keep his job. I caught a whiff of the university president’s announcement capitalizing on the public safety decision for publicity purposes. Who knows which flavor of cynicism (if any) is appropriate. Even the fact that the follow on committee doesn’t include a police rep member could be spun both ways without more knowledge.
” . . . more than two years after officers from the department shot and killed a Black man who was trying to break up a fight close to campus . . .”
The problem is that there is no way to know what is true anymore. (Maybe there never was.) Everybody lies with abandon and sheds crocodile tears by the gallon.
The collateral damage of dead students will be a minor inconvenience compared to black students feeling potentially unsafe due to the firearminess of the campus cops.
Until there’s a dead student as a result, it will be hailed as a glorious fix. And it will be, as long as there’s no dead student as a result.
The woke generation never heard of Charles Whitman and the Texas Tower.
Chances of that happening to them are slim. But if it happens, it’s really going to suck.
There’s always a Menckian solution to every problem, clear, simple and wrong. But see how easily it fits with the rhetoric, and how quickly the idiots adopt it. When someone gets killed because the campus cop can’t stop them, they will be the same idiots demanding that cops be given bazookas because also Menckian.
The syllogism rears its ugly head.
Most campus police are sworn officers, not “security guards.” They’re cops, authorized to do what any other cop can do. There is nothing more dangerous than a cop, in uniform, out there doing his job without the ability to defend himself and others. It’s like begging for mayhem, and it’s sad that there are readers here too stupid or blind to grasp why.
The university likely thinks both geography and psychology are on their side. The Portland PD Central Precinct (main cop shop) is just under five blocks away from campus. For the moment at least, PPD has guns and SWAT teams who know how to use them. If they show up and resolve your posited campus shooter scenario, great. If a student is killed on campus before PPD responds or after they set up at the scene the school has someone other than themselves to blame. Winner, chicken dinner.
This all leaves to the side a rational discussion about why educational institutions even have their own police forces rather than relying on PD’s or SO’s that have geographic jurisdiction.
The university likely thinks the path of least resistance and greatest wokeiosity will win them friends and avoid the defunding potential.
What do they say to the guy with a gun, “Hey, would you mind just holding off for a few, as the PPD is just five blocks away”?
Nope, admin calls 911, even if dozens of students and staff have already done so, then wash their hands in Pilate’s bowl before whatever cameras are available.
When the dust settles they tut-tut and there-there and hold a few hands.
Want to bet that CHLs will become popular with the student population?
If the police reform is what we need, who better to do it than enlightened universities? They have the power to do what they say they want to do. But they’re punting and passing the buck to the city, since now it’s the city cops who are going to be called when real cops are needed.
The whole situation reminds me of the Republicans who say they want to abolish Obamacare but won’t actually do it or even propose an alternative.
You were doing moderately well staying on topic until you blew it by adding in Obamacare.
Your point about passing the job to PPD, on the other hand, is a good one. They aren’t eliminating guns, but relying on PPD to be the shooter.
Rarely is a post and multiple comment threads on this site this stupid.
Whether or not particular police should be armed at all times depends on the relative probabilities of criminals killing people who could have been saved if those police were armed and of armed police killing people who shouldn’t have been killed.
Knowing those relative probabilities is hard. That is no excuse for all of these “what is going to happen when…?” arguments. Shouldn’t all cops go out with SWAT gear and full-auto assault weaponry at all times? If you think they shouldn’t, what’s going to happen when…?
The option isn’t naked or a tank, but the basic tools of the trade.