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Reed Hutchinson
UCLA Photographic Services
Officer Kevin Kay stops during his bike patrol to talk to a driver on campus.
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UCPD nerve center for law 'n' order
by judy lin
ucla today
(This is a longer version of the printed story)
Students quietly studying, faculty teaching, staff working – Ah! Another idyllic day at UCLA, everyone safe and sound.
But at UCLA’s Police Department (UCPD) on Westwood Blvd., it’s a different picture, where Communications Center dispatchers field phone calls, 911 emergencies and radio transmissions that roll in one after another: A wallet stolen from someone’s office. A suspicious character selling what looked like marijuana in a hallway. An unruly patient refusing to leave the medical center. An accident at a campus construction site. A Westwood bank alarm – a false alarm, it’s later determined – that sends patrol cars race screaming to surround the place.
So much for idyllic.
“People think this is Camelot,” said UCPD Police Chief Karl Ross. “ ‘This is UCLA,’ they’ll say. ‘Nothing will happen here.’ But you’d be surprised,” said Ross, a Vietnam veteran and commercial pilot with 26 years in the department who directs UCPD’s 60-person staff of patrol officers, dispatchers, detectives, emergency response technicians, community service officers and support staff.
While campus crime is low, it happens. The campus’s open access as a public university can be inviting to community members and criminals alike: Witness the recent vandalism in the Rolfe Courtyard. UCPD dispatchers have 80 different codes with which to log in the wide range of calls: theft, fights, medical emergencies, drug dealing, armed robbery, suspicious packages, domestic violence, fires, drunk driving and stalking, to name just a few.
“This is a very demanding job,” said Laura Herrera, who supervises the Communications Center -- five dispatcher stations blinking, ringing and squawking with multiple computer monitors, phone lines and radio frequencies. “We have to stay cool,” she says.
Often the dispatchers team up, one taking information from a caller while another radios officers to respond.
“We get everything a regular police department handles,” said Herrera.
UCPD’s force is, in fact, a regular police department. Its officers, who undergo the same rigorous training and hold the same police powers as the Los Angeles Police Department and other municipal forces, are UCLA’s very own, charged with providing protection of all property owned, controlled and operated by the UC Regents. UCPD’s territory stretches to the campus’s perimeter and a mile beyond, and also includes such sites as the Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center and off-campus student housing.
In directing the UCPD, Ross takes a proactive approach to crime: “community policing” which entails constant patrolling of the area and continual relationship-building with constituents.
“We need to keep an eye on things, make sure everyone’s safe,” said Officer John Reyes, a youthful patrolman who spent four years on the force at UC Santa Barbara before joining UCPD about a year ago. Reyes patrols in his black-and-white squad car, taking it along a slow, circuitous route from one end of campus to the other, radioing headquarters every few minutes to let dispatchers know where he is.
Patrolling entails a keen sense of observation and more than a little suspicion. During a recent afternoon patrol, Reyes spots a van with out-of-state plates illegally parked on north campus. He steps out of his squad car, walks around the van, peeks into the curtained windows. He radios the license plate number to a dispatcher, who radios back a report of nothing unusual. Reyes says it’s not the out-of-state plates or illegal parking that bother him, but the fact that a van with concealed windows is parked outside the Fernald Child Care Center on campus.
“There are people out there who want to hurt other people,” he said. “Anything could happen.”
Officers on bicycle and foot patrols check out places a squad car can’t, such as walkways between residence halls and the interior of campus buildings, where theft is all too common. Officers keep an eye out for “office creepers,” a nickname for anonymous visitors who wander around looking for purses, briefcases, laptops and anything else they might get their hands on.
“Our officers need to be able to very quickly size up a situation,” said Chief Ross. “It takes a unique type of person to work for the UCPD. We are obviously dealing with a very bright campus community, and at the same time we’re dealing with the criminal element.” A person in a broken-down car after dark could be a no-gooder or could just as easily be a researcher working late. “Our officers are very adaptable,” Ross said.
Of special concern are the 12,000 or so campus residents — students in residence halls, fraternities and sororities.
“Students are vulnerable,” said Reyes. “They’re young and sometimes too trusting.” There’s also the ongoing challenge of dealing with students and noisy parties. “We’re dealing with college kids doing college things,” Reyes said. “We need to remind them to turn down the volume and be respectful of other people.”
Many students get directly involved in the life of UCPD through two programs: Students working as Emergency Medical Technicians respond to medical emergencies on campus, often working hand in hand with the paramedics from the Los Angeles Fire Department. The intensive training and hands-on experience leads some of these students into the medical profession. In addition, students working as Community Service Officers (CSOs) provide security in libraries, resident halls and other locations, watching for crimes like bicycle theft and serving as eyes and ears for the department.
Sometimes calls from CSOs or the public lead to crime-stopping breakthroughs, like the time a student reported someone nosing around cars in a campus parking structure. When police arrived to check it out, they discovered four auto thieves working the lot.
In another incident, a suspicious person trying to sign for a package was reported by residence hall staff; it turned out he was stealing students’ mail and using it further his career as a member of an international identity theft ring.
UCPD regularly collaborates with community and campus groups. Said Ross, “Community policing is all about forming partnerships to deal with quality of life issues on the campus.” UCPD partners with Student Affairs, for example, to help fraternities and sororities conduct themselves responsibly. UCPD also makes sure victims of crime know about campus resources such as Student Psychological Services.
Ross wants members of his department to provide service above and beyond the call of duty.
“For an officer responding to a call, we want to do more than just take a report and leave,” the chief said. “We want to make sure all the issues were addressed, that they were provided with resources to help, that the officer was professional and courteous.”
A solid relationship with their constituents, Ross said, makes it more likely that people will call when they need help.
“In some respects,” he said, “We’re as good as the community that wants to call us. I encourage people to let us know when they see suspicious activity. Maybe you’re thinking, ‘Oh no, they’re so busy, I don’t want to bother them.’ But that’s our job. Call us.”
You can reach the UCPD at (310) 825-1491, or at 911 on your Westwood-area residential or office phone. |
