April 18, 2006
OPINIONSLegend's View:
No need for officers to have guns on campus
Does anyone remember the hostage situation in the library last year? Or the gang of 50 guys with chains and dogs that ran rampant in the fall of 2004 terrorizing any student with a 3.0 GPA? Or how about the calculator chop shop they found by the Health Improvement Center that was run by Guatemalan insane asylum escapees who were armed with medieval weaponry they stole from the Renaissance Festival?
Well, if you don’t remember any of this, it might be because it never happened. Good thing for us it didn’t, or else we’d have no calculators and all the good students would have been scared away.
The point is that MCC is a fairly calm campus. The amount of serious crime that is committed here is minimal. Yes, bikes and wallets are stolen, and vending machines are occasionally vandalized. But it’s not like we go to college in the projects of Detroit.
So then the question arises; is there a need for armed college safety personnel? Well seeing that our lovely campus is located in the suburbia wonderland we know as Mesa, the answer is probably no.
Now some who might find this View to be perhaps, unfounded, might point out that at high schools they have armed police on campus. This is true and undeniable. However there is at least one major difference between a cop at Mesa High and an armed College Safety personnel- the cop is still under city jurisdiction.
Across the district there is a movement by the certified College Safety personnel (not the kids on bikes, the certified safety officers) to create a whole new department. In essence, they are trying to make themselves into a police force. They want to add more staff, get more funding, be given arresting powers, and of course, carry guns.
Steve Corich, director of Public Safety at MCC, is spearheading the proposal. This request has been denied in the past, back in 2003. Now Corich and company are trying to bypass some of the steps to get what they want. For example they seem to not be speaking with Chancellor Rufus Glasper.
It all seems so unnecessary.
The safety officers here have barely ever had to use their pepper spray, why the sudden need for guns? Along with that there would only be five officers here on campus that would have the State’s certification and be permitted to carry guns.
Three guns for the 25,000 or so students who go here?
Another point the proponents of expanding the College Safety Department is that ASU has armed police that are their own entity. Of course they do. ASU is also practically its own city, complete with on-campus housing and football players who carry guns. Their needs are arguably greater than MCC’s.
So is there really a need to have armed MCC police patrolling the campus with a red and blue light spinning on top of the golf cart?
No.
So why is the issue being pressed? The answer, apparently, is why not?
The rebuttal: because there is no need.