Type Of Incident Criminal Possession Of Stolen Property Arrest And Parole Violation: Fill & Download for Free

“What's it like being a police officer at a university?”As Gerry Abueno noted, there’s no “one size fits all” answer to this question. In fact, my experience as a police officer at a university was apparently the exact opposite of his in many respects, as I never considered my job to be “low action” or making me prone to “losing my edge.” I will agree with his points about the political environment, though, which is one of the reasons why I worked almost my entire career on deep nights. As I told my recruits, “Working overnight (10 pm -> 8 am) generally means fewer people, fewer bosses, and fewer people who think they are your bosses.”I worked for a major Big Ten university police department for 20 years and thought it was a great job, but others worked for the same department and all they wanted to do was get out.At the same time, there are all sorts of different universities with police departments, some small and remote, others large and “in the mix” of major metropolitan areas. You can’t expect The Job at Marquette University PD (smack-dab in the middle of Milwaukee, Wisconsin) to be the same as The Job at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville PD (which is smack-dab in the middle of nothing).For instance, when I worked at the University of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana), I worked with an officer who did a lateral transfer from Northern Illinois University (DeKalb). Joe’s first night on patrol with me was on a Sunday. As we passed one of the popular campustown bars, some guy staggered out the front door, turned a corner into an alley, and then vomited copious amounts of liquid in the alley. Even though Joe had a few years’ experience at NIU, he seemed stunned that someone would get that drunk on a Sunday night. For me, it was just another night of work.When we discussed it, Joe explained that NIU is a few miles out of town from DeKalb, so there wasn’t a whole lot of opportunity for students to get into trouble or cause alcohol-fueled problems on-campus. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights might have a few parties in dorms or the occasional kid who drove drunk back to campus, but there just wasn’t a lot of rowdiness at NIU. At UIUC, however, “the weekend” might start on Tuesdays with Wine Night at Clybourne’s, then continue on Wednesday and Thursday with bar crawls for the various fraternities, sororities, or student social clubs, and then the real weekend would just be a whole mess of people wandering through the campustown area and across campus. Being within an easy walking distance of the bars meant that the students accessed them much more often. With that easy access came a lot of alcohol-related calls and problems police addressed on-campus and off.That geographic component also made a difference in the types of people the police got involved with. While NIU didn’t have much of a problem with local ne’er-do-wells coming out to campus, UIUC was right in the middle of Champaign-Urbana. Every problem you might find in a city of 150,000+ existed right around (and on) the campus property. During my career, I responded to calls of practically every sort with the exception of a murder in-progress. I responded to armed robberies, sexual assaults, attempted murder, burglaries (in-progress and report-only), one-on-one fights, 50-on-50 brawls, stolen cars, vehicle pursuits, DUIs, fatal car crashes, you name it.Fortunately for me, the timing of my retirement on 09–01–2016 was just right. Unfortunately for a completely innocent UI student/bystander who just happened to be in the heart of campustown on September 24, 2016, UIPD officers (along with officers from every other police department in the area) responded to a fight/shooting right in the middle of my former general patrol area. I was sitting at a Cleveland Indians ball game when my phone went off with a “Campustown Alert” message about this shooting: Campustown shootings: 'Senseless'Just seven months ago, two of my former co-workers and a local deputy (who happens to be the son of UIPD’s long-time Chief) responded to a report of a man with a gun right in the middle of UIPD’s general patrol area. As it turned out, the man was apparently attempting a “suicide by cop,” but ended up being wounded and taken to a hospital.UI student shot by police had pellet gun(Incidentally, the officers involved in this incident are three of the most level-headed and professional people I’ve ever known. I wonder how many news sites actually ran this story, as the officers successfully took the man into custody without killing him.)So… working for a University-based police department can be just as exciting or dangerous or boring as working at any other police department — all depending on just what’s going on at the moment.There were the political issues, however. While 95% of the people I interacted with were reasonable and professional people, there were a few who were convinced that I was Satan incarnate, solely because I wore a police officer’s uniform. I remember walking up to a building one day to take some report or the other and holding the door open for a woman who was approaching at the same time. She actually started shouting at me that it was “misogynistic” of me to attempt to hold the door for her and that she didn’t want me behind her because she was afraid I might shoot her. Yikes! Talk about an overreaction! I eventually realized, however, that it was nothing personal and she had probably decided a long time before to just ruin the day of anyone she had to talk to…And there definitely were students and faculty who believed that they were automatically superior to me, again, based solely on my uniform.To close, I’ll include an anecdote I put on another answer comparing campus-based vs municipal policing:The following is the best possible way to describe my job as a police officer at a major Midwestern university (aka war story alert):It was around 11 pm on an early February Friday night. I had just gotten into my squad car and was patrolling the campus area when I noticed a car ahead of me.Side note: At the time, Illinois had a temporary registration tag which had been nicknamed the “Five-Day Felony Tag.” These tags were supposed to be used when a person bought a car and needed a few days to move it to its home town, where the owner was supposed to apply for regular registration. Instead, many criminals simply purchased one five-day tag after another, because no one kept track of those tags and who bought them. While there were certainly some people who used them as they were intended, the nickname came about because you were likely to end up with a felony arrest if you stopped a car bearing the tags.The car I noticed was bearing a “Five-Day Felony Tag.” The driver was not very consistent with his speed, as he would speed up along some stretches of the roadway, then slow considerably when he approached people walking along the sidewalk. At one point, he sped up to about 7 miles over the posted speed limit, so I decided to stop the car and discuss it with the driver.When I stopped the car and approached, the driver immediately informed me that his license was suspended. I asked why he was driving if he knew his license was suspended, and he said he just wanted to “cruise around.” I then learned that the driver was not the owner of the car. The rear seat passenger stated the car belonged to him, that his license was also suspended, and that he knew that the driver did not have a valid license. The front seat passenger claimed that he had never had a driver’s license.So… back-up arrived and we had all three men get out of the car. I arrested the driver immediately and discovered a large baggie containing about 20 dime-bags of cannabis in his coat pocket. That’s “possession with intent to distribute” in Illinois, so my misdemeanor DUS arrest became my first felony from the car. The owner (the rear seat passenger) was also on parole for possession with intent. During a parole search, another baggie containing another 20 or so dime-bags of cannabis was found, so he got a parole violation and another possession with intent charge. The front seat passenger told me three different ways to spell his name, which led me to believe he was not being truthful about that. I ended up arresting him for obstructing justice, then found another baggie in his pocket. This baggie, however, had a dozen or so “corners” (the corner of a plastic baggie wrapped around an item, then torn loose and tied off) of crack cocaine. That passenger was also eventually identified and had a warrant for armed robbery.There was also a loaded pistol and powdered cocaine in the car. No one claimed those, so the owner was charged with possession of both. What was fun was watching the in-car camera footage of him arguing with the front seat passenger about the gun. The front seat passenger eventually apologized to the owner about bringing the gun with him, so the unlawful use of weapons charge was later switched over to him.I was three for three felonies on my stop! Whoo hoo!!!After transporting the three to jail (I took two and another officer took one), I spent several hours packaging all the evidence and writing my report on the stop.Around 4 am, I went out and was walking through one of the residence halls on campus. I found a group of young men in one of the lounges playing euchre. We were talking about various stuff when one of the men said he had to use the bathroom and asked me to play his hand for him. I agreed and played a few rounds of the game before he returned.Now I ask you, Dear Reader — where else but in a campus police department might an officer make three solid felony drugs-and-weapons arrests at the beginning of his shift, then spend 20 minutes or so talking with a bunch of guys and playing a friendly card game towards the end of his shift? I don’t know that it’s possible anywhere else…(Christopher Hawk's answer to How does working for a University Police Department compare to being a city cop?)