PoliceLink

Okay since nobody has posted anything here yet I will. I know there are plenty of campus police officers out there who have plenty of things to talk about! I know a few of you so lets see you talk about what kinds of stuff you have going on there. Like how is it similar or different from working in a big city? What are some of the major issues on campuses that involve you?

Hi Elektra,

I work for the Los Angeles Schools Police Department.  We are the fourth largest police department in Los Angeles County and the second largest in the United States.  We not only cover all the schools in Los Angeles, but contracts cities in the area that are policed by the Sheriff's Department, and 11 other municipalities that are not large enough to have officers on campus.   In Los Angeles, many of the schools are absolute war zones.   There is little to no respect for teachers, staff, faculty, and especially the police.   Not only do we deal with out of control juvenilles, but with out of control parents as well.  We handle literally everything that a municipal police department handles, and of course our authority is the same. 

Aside from keeping the pot lid down on the schools each day, one big issue I see is being looked at as a "step down" in the law enforcement community.  Many municipal police departments look at school or campus police officers as those who could not make it elsewhere.  You find yourself on guard with other agencies and feeling sometimes you have to prove your departments worthiness.   I worked in municipal police department for 16 years, and never really realized the job the school police have.  This is truly a specialized type of law enforcement, and forgive me for saying this outside agencies, a job that a lot of you could not do.   The diplomacy and tact in dealing with parents and school staff is mind-numbing.  Trying to convince the parent that little junior is failing because he is a habitual truant is not our fault!  We handle everything from graffitti to murders, covering everything in between.  Yes, there are things we must defer to other agencies, but we are well equipped to handle anything that comes along.   

I conduct background investigations and am on our counter-terrorism unit.  Another commom misnomer is anyone can get hired on a school police department.  Not here.  We have about an 80% failure rate in the background process.  We are very particular who we put in these schools.  We will not take some departments throwbacks or someone whose background is so shoddy that no one will hire them.  We take great pride in our cadets graduating in the top 10 percentile of the academy classes.  We even run a month long pre-academy to get our recruits ready both physically and academically. 

So that is a few of the issues we face, but we face them with professionalism and pride.  Take care and please be safe.

Joe Footdale