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Insurance Woes Disarm Campus Police
by Derek
College Police Chief David Ingram
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The Mars Hill campus police chief and his staff have stopped wearing their uniforms after being ordered to stop carrying their guns.
Police Chief David Ingram says that members of the campus police department were told back in July that, due to an increase in insurance premiums, they would not be able to carry their guns for an indefinite period. The news came from Bob McLendon, vice president of Administration and Marketing.
McLendon explained in an interview that the college's insurance carrier had announced a $90,000 increase in the annual cost of the school's liability insurance. He said most of the increase is probably a result of the September 11 attacks two years ago, which caused a huge demand for settlements from insurance companies.
In addition the insurance company had moved the college's campus police department out from under that "umbrella" of liability coverage. Covering the department would mean an increase of $15,000 a year to get the same level of coverage as last year and an additional $17,000 a year for insurance allowing the officers to bear arms.
McLendon said he asked the college's insurance broker if the problem could be solved if the officers were not armed. He was told that there would be no increase in coverage for campus police if they did not carry their guns. Although the coverage would not be the same as last year, disarming would at least allow the department to once again be included under the umbrella of the school's liability insurance.
So McLendon told the officers that they would have to surrender their guns until the situation could be dealt with. Then he began talking to the school's insurance broker to see what could be done.
It has now been three months since the officers lost their guns, and no decision has been made yet as to when or even if they will get them back. McLendon says he and several other administration officials have been in contact with both the college's former insurance broker and a new one McLendon began working with recently because he did not believe the original broker was representing the college well.
McLendon says he and other school officials are reviewing offers from other insurance carriers to see if a better price can be arranged.
Under the current carrier, even if the police give up their guns, it will cost extra to bring liability coverage up to last year's level. If the college doesn't pay the increase, liability coverage for the department will drop from $10 million to $1 million, leaving the school vulnerable to lawsuits.
However, Ingram points out, McLendon isn't just receiving offers from insurance carriers. McLendon confirmed that he and several other school officials have been speaking to a major national security company about the possibility of their being contracted to provide the school's security. Such a move would eliminate the current campus police department.
Some fear that this would mean a reduction in the quality of services. In addition to traditional law enforcement, campus police offer rides across campus for students who feel unsafe walking alone, open doors when keys are locked in cars or in buildings, handle medical emergencies when the nurse is gone, and provide a number of other services.
Ingram has a staff of four full time police officers. Ingram is a Madison County native, and Assistant Chief Thomas Fulmer is a 1995 graduate of the college. The department is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Though an outside security agency would bring in its own protocol not necessarily fitting for the college campus and its own employees who may feel no connection to Mars Hill College, McLendon says the agency the college is speaking with has promised to provide the same services. A meeting between representatives of the security company and college officials is scheduled for October 13.
Ingram has given his staff permission to stop wearing their uniforms, fearing that the uniforms could attract attention to the officers in the event of a violent incident and put them in danger with no way to defend themselves.
Citing increasing violence in schools across the nation, Ingram said "Recent events have proven that if you have to wait for help, those people that an attacker has come to get are going to be dead before someone can get there."
Despite the close proximity of the town's police department to the campus, Ingram says campus police officers are likely to be the first on the scene should something happen on the campus. He contends that speedy response may do no good if the officers are not armed. .
Asked what he could do in a violent situation with no sidearm, Ingram said, "Well, I can throw my radio at them or I can call for help. That's about it."
McLendon says he understands how the officers feel without weapons. He spent six years as a military policeman and knows how it would have felt to be asked to give up his own gun. "I would have felt that I was not fulfilling my duties. I would have felt unprotected… I've walked around buildings in the dead of night at two or three o'clock in the morning to check the security of a building, and that is an eerie feeling."
On the other hand, he says that many small colleges successfully use an unarmed security force rather than an armed police force. For example, he said, nearby Brevard College and Spartenburg Methodist, a college where he worked, do not have a police force with arrest power or the power to carry arms. They refer cases that need arrest to nearby city or county police.
He stressed, however, that no decision has been made. And he promised in an interview with The Hilltop that, if a decision were to be made to go with an outside security force and there were complaints from the campus community, the administration would listen.
"If there is an outcry I would promise you that we would want to listen to anyone who had an opinion about it, and would be willing to sit, listen and talk as long as necessary, certainly about a subject as important as campus security," he said.
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