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Guns, and Jamie Moffitt searches for new Police Chief

Ad here. Anyone know who’s on this search committee? The inside candidate is Pete Deshpande. Ms Moffitt’s non-explanation of why she suddenly fired Public Safety Director Doug Tripp is here. Tripp apparently has a new job in Florida, which will should save us $90K or so on the year’s severance pay. And the latest transparency update from police.uoregon.edu is here – it’s from Francis Dyke, in Jan 2010. Brings back some memories, that does.

Last I checked UO was paying its public safety director more than the City of Eugene was paying its Police Chief Pete Kearns. Presumably the push for guns will yield another big raise. No worries, Moffitt has plenty of money for this sort of stuff, and is happy to spend it if it will make her job easier. Just don’t ask her to help pay the startup for some physics professor.

Will UO arm the new police? I think it’s inevitable. Read this 2011 report from the University Risk Management and Insurance Association. It boils down to this:

  • yes, armed police means a risk of a lawsuit if your police shoot someone
  • but unarmed police means a risk of a lawsuit because someone gets shot buy a disgruntled graduate student whom armed police could have stopped
  • there’s no clear evidence as to which risk is greater, but most campuses our size have armed police
  • in a lawsuit, the “everyone else is doing it” defense carries a lot of weight

1/31/2013.

10 Comments

  1. Anonymous 01/31/2013

    Dog barks loudly

    For once, some good news. Pete Deshpande is an incredibly sensible and excellent choice. I hope they give the job to him- He understands how Eugene “works” far better than most.

  2. UO Matters 01/31/2013

    Thanks Dog, any idea where he stands on guns, tazers, and SUVs?

    • Anonymous 02/01/2013

      Dogs says

      need more beer with Pete to know but he is sensible
      and does recognize overkill and excess. Of course its hard to over turn that which has already been done but I can’t imagine him supporting a continuation of this excess. One reason not to hire him, I guess ….

      Someone ought to compute the carbon footprint associated with the SUVs roaming aimlessly.

      Has anyone yet seen a UOPD SUV performing a helpful
      operation?

      Personally, I have seen many of these SUVs, standing still,
      engine running, while 3 UO police officers are telling jokes
      over coffee …

    • Anonymous 02/01/2013

      Me too (seen the running SUV’s). They are annoyingly out of place on a ‘green’ campus where so many are trying to walk or bike and compost everything. We should have bike cops, but maybe panniers can’t hold the riot gear. I also don’t like seeing uniformed cops everywhere, it’s startling and makes me nervous. They appear to be trying to seem friendly, but the uniforms are a disturbing presence.
      So, if we’re going to have cops on this campus, I’d prefer a cadre of Hawaii 5-0 dressed bike messenger types.

    • Anonymous 02/01/2013

      And they’re now flexing their muscles doing traffic stops on Franklin Blvd. Expanding out onto EPD’s turf… Better watch your driving in the on and off-campus areas or you might find yourself contributing to the UOPD slush fund.

  3. Anonymous 02/01/2013

    It seems glaringly clear that only a few of us are actually trying to be more “green”, and the UO as an institution is mostly committed to the very popular “greenwash” look….

  4. Anonymous 02/01/2013

    Police leave their cars running because the equipment/computers draw heavy on the vehicle battery. To shut down and turn on the computer everytime you leave the vehicle would be prohibitive.

    I love seeing them on campus. Nothing discourages rapist and tweaker thieves like four black and whites driving circles around them. If you think they are “roaming aimlessly” perhaps you should educate yourself on the definition of ‘patrol’.

    • UO Matters 02/01/2013

      Someday you will need help from the police. In my experience police officers generally do an extremely professional job dealing with very unpleasant people in very difficult situations. That said, this is supposed to be a community policing effort and it is discouraging to see how little presence there seems to be on campus with police walking or biking. Here’s hoping the new chief addresses this.

    • Anonymous 02/01/2013

      Dog says (in agreement with UOmatters)

      I would wager that most campus crime does not occur within site of an accessible SUV on a paved road. So rather than having these coffee conversations around SUVs, why don’t we see them on patrol on the actual campus grounds and not just driving around “patrolling” …

  5. Anonymous 02/15/2013

    Armed farce has been a done deal from the start. We need the GestapO in place before the next big tuition hike.

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