Be Sure to be Able to Justify Your Decision
Risk comes in many forms: liability, litigation, officer safety, student and staff safety, occupational error and more. Whatever path you take, you must mitigate the risk that is involved and be prepared to justify your decision with sound reasoning and clear logic.
Remember that risk exists on both sides of the issue. Mitigating that risk is the key to a successful program. For example, if your officers are not going to be armed with a firearm, ensure they have the proper armed backup available and on campus. Whether this means contracting with another department to maintain a presence on campus is up to the institution.
Remember, the real question is not “should we use lethal weapons?” but rather, “what legal and practical implications need to be considered based on the various factors?” Answering the latter question with clear logic and rationale will usually guide you to the appropriate answer to the former question.
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Create a Fact-Finding Committee to Debate the Issue While it may be prudent and ethical to hear all input that is offered, unless that student, staff member or officer is a successful practicing attorney willing and obligated to defend the institution in a court of law, their opinions are just that. Remember, you want just the facts. Administrators should understand that above any individual group’s interest is the university’s interest as a whole. How does one judge that? Some important factors to consider are the practicality based on the needs of the campus/institution, and the legal, liability, and risk implications. Col. Mark J. Porter, chief of police at Brown University, believes that when approaching this subject, it is important to also look at it from the community’s perspective, particularly during a worst-case scenario. “You have to look at what the institution expects of its officers,” he says.
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Cmdr. Shad U. Ahmed is the Director of the National Institute for Public Safety Research and Training and Chief of Emergency Medical Services at the University of Rhode Island. He may be reached at [email protected].
This article was originally published in 2009.
