DMN and Texas

[NewAgeMustange]

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/he ... ke-smu.ece

[DanFreibergerForHeisman]

Doesn't the Legislature have anything better to do?

[East Coast Mustang]

I don't have an issue with this. If private campus police departments are going to have the same power and authority as municipal police departments to make arrests and what not, then they should be subject to the same disclosure requirements.

[NavyCrimson]

Agree

[SMUPhil]

Right, as some pointed out in the comments, what argument could you make against this? Maybe there is one, but I can't think of it.

[Digetydog]

1) When I was a student, SMU had DPS Troopers working as campus policy. Has that changed?

2) If they are arresting people, they aren't rent-a-cops and need to held to the same standards as other police departments. If not, you could end up with a Penn State situation.

[rodrod5]

a lot of people do not know that PUBLIC university police are full police officers and more than that they are STATE police officers with the same jurisdiction as the DPS, but much less training and experience

I do not know how SMU or Rice or any of the other private universities do it, but one issue I have had with public school officers is they spend most of their time off campus doing municipal police work like DWI and traffic enforcement while there is plenty of crime on campus (as some officers I was talking with at public university where their police are NOT off campus told me)

I do not have an issue with them enforcing the laws it is the fact that university students are not getting their needs taken care of as books, bikes, backpacks, electronics and even cars walk and drive off of campus with impunity while a campus officer is sitting waiting for someone to run a stop sign

if they want to run it like that then cut the campus cops and contract with the local PD plus again the campus cops are often woefully under trained relative even to municipal police and I have no desire to see a university dragged into a lawsuit when a campus cop gets in over their head on what they thought was an easy revenue stop

and the common theme with the stories listed in that report is stupid people doing stupid things which is why they had interaction with the police in the first place