Letter: Student lobbies for armed campus police; South Kingstown not enough

03/05/09 - To the Cigar,

The Rhode Island Board of Governors has some serious common sense issues when it comes to the question of arming campus police. In 2000, a question regarding arming campus police was met with the following answer: "Arming university police officers at this time is not prudent; future events may warrant such action."

To put it another way, "Let's wait till someone is killed, then we will respond appropriately by arming campus police."

If we thought like that when it came to fire safety (let's wait until someone dies in a dorm fire, then we will install fire alarms and sprinklers) many, many people would be put at risk.

Another frequent argument is that the South Kingstown police station is "four minutes down the road."

Though the police station is just down the road, this does not mean there are officers sitting in the station waiting for something to happen. The majority of the time officers are out on patrol.

The SKPD is a great department with a vast array of training and skills. Given the large geographical area the SKPD is responsible for and manpower and budget limitations, an incident at the opposite end of town would result in prolonged response times.

Even if there were a number of officers sitting in the station and shots were fired at URI, four minutes is a long time - long enough for an inexperienced shooter to fire 120 rounds from a semi-automatic handgun (assuming one round every two seconds, a more experienced shooter with a weapon like an AK-47 could get off 1,600 rounds in four minutes with the weapon in "burst" mode.)

Is the Board of Governors is willing to sit and wait with students for the cavalry to arrive? Obtaining intelligence, and forming a tactical plan will take even more time. Meanwhile the shots keep coming.

As a former deputy chief at URI Emergency Medical Services, the statistics do not portray the "real deal."

A concert at Edwards Hall not long ago prompted URI to request Rhode Island State Police and SKPD units to stand by in a "show of force" to ward off the potential for violence. While violence is not prevalent on this campus, it has reared its ugly head in the form of assault, sexual assault, narcotic-related and other crimes.

Non-lethal weapons are simply not effective against a person armed with a gun. You cannot taser or pepper spray an armed suspect from a distance of 30, 40 or 50 feet. The shooters at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois universities did not want to talk to police. They had one intention in mind: to kill. No amount of talking or negotiation would have stopped them.

Unfortunately, when the need arises for lethal force, it arrives quickly and demands a swift and well-planned response. It is simply unacceptable that part of the plan is to wait and hope SKPD has officers are close by and available.

It is my understanding that all URI police officers attend the Rhode Island Municipal Police Academy and are trained in the same manner as any other police officer in Rhode Island.

A number of officers are retired from various cities and towns in Rhode Island, bringing a vast amount of administrative and law enforcement knowledge and experience to the department. The BOG should recognize this and allow them to carry all the tools needed to effectively enforce the law. Officers will not draw their weapons on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis. However, if in the next five years an officer draws his weapon once and a life is saved, it is highly worth it. The world we live in today is very different than the world in which the BOG attended college.

Today's world dictates a proactive stance, not the reactive stance the BOG has taken with this issue. Waiting for someone to be injured or killed represents a huge liability for the university. I think even a mediocre lawyer could obtain a good settlement for a victim's family.

Of the many duties the BOG is charged with, protecting the lives of our students and faculty is the biggest and most challenging. This duty is passed from them to campus police officers. If the BOG is going to pass this responsibility to them, then the board also needs to provide the tools, training and funding they require to exercise those duties safely and efficiently.



Peter Ruggeri