IT'S GOOD TO BE ARMED, CAMPUS POLICE SAY

Campus police at Missouri's colleges aren't gunning for trouble, but they say it makes sense to be armed.

Truman State University in Kirksville plans to arm its police officers with guns despite opposition from students. The university has ordered semi-automatic handguns for its 10 officers.

Lisa Sprague, director of campus safety at the school, said the move is a preventative measure: With armed officers, the school will be less dependent on outside law enforcement agencies and be able to respond faster to campus emergencies.

A 1995 Justice Department survey found that 81 percent of the nation's public colleges and universities and 34 percent of its private institutions had armed police officers.

Sprague said the number could be hirer. "I would think they have increased, especially with all of the violence we've had in our society, particularly at schools," she said.

Truman State spokeswoman Heidi Templeton said the decision by the school's Board of Governors reflects "the reality of the way things are in our society now" and a desire to provide for the future safety of students.

The decision by Truman State leaves Missouri with only three four-year institutions whose officers don't carry guns: Northwest Missouri State University at Maryville, Missouri Western State College at St. Joseph and Missouri Southern State College at Joplin.

Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau has had armed officers for decades. Doug Richards, director of public safety at Southeast, said it is a liability for colleges to hire commissioned officers and then not arm them.

Campus police at Truman State and Northwest carry batons and pepper spray. Officers at Missouri Western carry pepper spray.

Like their armed counterparts at other public colleges and universities in the state, they are commissioned officers who are trained in the use of firearms.

Missouri Southern's security officers aren't armed or commissioned. They don't have arrest powers. Any arrests are left up to the Joplin police.

Richards said batons and pepper spray aren't adequate if officers have to go up against a gun-toting assailant.

Southeast's 16 commissioned officers carry department-issued Glocks, which are semi-automatic, .40-caliber handguns. A lot of the officers also carry their own handguns as back-up weapons.

The officers carry both Cape Girardeau city and state commissions.

Armed officers, Richards said, help combat crime. "The major objective of policing is to deter crime," he said.

Armed, campus police officers are just one part of the university's efforts to prevent crime. The university also has installed cameras in its patrol cars and mounted surveillance cameras across the campus.

Southeast has 31 emergency calls boxes across campus. Pushing the call-box button activates a 911 emergency call to the university's police communications center. The university also has a lighted corridor designed to make it safer for students to walk across campus at night.

"You take away the opportunity for a criminal to commit a crime," said Richards.

The campus police patrol the university grounds and within a three-block radius of the campus. They respond to emergencies elsewhere in Cape Girardeau if requested to do so by the city police.

Richards said none of his officers has ever discharged a firearm in the course of their duties. Still, that doesn't mean officers shouldn't carry guns.

Richards said arming officers helps discourage people from causing trouble.

Jonathan Kelley is director of security at Missouri Western. He said his officers would like to carry guns. "They are certified to be armed, but the administration feels at this point in time the college doesn't need an armed security unit."

Kelley said his officers two weeks ago confiscated a gun found in a student's backpack.

"We have had shootings on campus in the past. Luckily, no one has ever been seriously hurt," he said.

Kelley said his department operates just like a police department when it comes to enforcing laws and responding to crimes and traffic accidents. "We just don't do it with guns," he said.

But Kelley said colleges that don't arm their officers are taking a gamble violence won't erupt on their campuses.

Kelley said he doesn't believe most students or parents of students would be opposed to arming campus officers.

But at Truman State students voting in a student government election opposed arming officers by more than a 2-to-1 margin. The vote was 836 opposed to 339 for arming the officers. The university has an enrollment of 6,200.

Student Jessica Post said, "Students on the campus have received no justification for the guns." She said there has been little or no increase of violent crime on campus.

In the past two years an armed Truman State student barricaded himself in a building. But Templeton, the university's spokeswoman, said that didn't occur on campus.

As Templeton sees it, Truman State is just doing what campus police departments have done for years.

"The majority are already armed and have been for quite some time," she said.