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E-PrincePublic Safety plays an essential role in ensuring that Princeton remains a safe community. We are grateful for this service, and we maintain that the best way for Public Safety to fulfill its mandate is for its officers to remain ...(back to the article)
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you have to be joking. I'm not willing to risk people's lives just to ensure that we don't perceive p. safety as "authoritarian" or not our "partners". Newsflash: they are authorities. and I doubt anyone would be more reluctant to approach a p. safety officer for help if they have a gun. Does anybody refrain from asking armed police officers for help when you need them?
What about keeping weapons at the facility at Elm Drive so Public Safety officers can quickly arm themselves to respond to such an emergency? This way we wouldn't have an armed, "authoritarian" presence patrolling our halls every Saturday night, or any of the other ills the dissent mentions. Even if armed officers at other school shootings didn't seem to help, they certainly didn't hurt; it's also impossible to know how many tragedies were prevented by the presence of such a deterrent.
What we would have are nearly all the benefits proposed by the majority article. P-Safety officers, with their superior knowledge of the campus, would be our first armed responders. Additionally, since this compromise avoids most of the controversy of officers constantly carrying weapons, it's more likely we could overcome our disagreements and actually make this happen.
While the response time may not be as fast as if officers were permanently armed, it would be quicker than the status quo. It would certainly be no worse, and it could also improve P-Safety's effectiveness as a deterrent.
I agree a shooting is unlikely at Princeton, but this article's .0001% estimate is naive; a 50 year sample makes little sense when shootings have been concentrated in the last decade, and considering Princeton as an equally likely target as any other school in the US (of which many are smaller, more remote, and lower profile) excessively downplays the threat.
me no care
a voice of reason.
"Though it is possible that Public Safety could respond marginally faster than Borough or Township Police to a shooting on campus, it is unlikely this would make any difference in the eventual outcome."
This is an unsubstantiated claim and flies in the face of most of the newer active shooter tactics, which state that getting to the gunman as fast as possible is the best case scenario and can save the most lives.
There was some report on TV recently examining the idea of having armed vigilantes and their ability to actually stop an active shooter. The results surprised me, in that they indicated it wouldn't make much of a difference. I'm sure the NRA tore the report to pieces though, though I don't care enough to investigate.
see a common sentiment on campus is that "oh we don't need our police to have guns, nothing will ever happen here because nothing has ever happened here in years"
so are you guys saying that we should say, go around to various small towns in the nation and strip their officiers of weapons if there hasn't been an incident requiring guns in their jurisdiction for x number of years?
"Allowing officers to carry guns would cause them to be perceived even less as partners and more as authoritarian enforcers, undermining an important goal of community policing."
excuse me, the way things stand, they're just cops pretending not to be cops. wolves in sheepskin. the fact of the matter is this - if you wear the uniform, you are NOT a partner. you are an enforcer first and foremost.
srsly how did this sorta idea get into your minds? growing up, what kinda cops did u ever see not carrying a gun? mallcops, rentacops, but certainly not real cops (like our darkshirts). we grew up around cops with guns! we don't fear them! am i the only one who remembers when officer friendly went to ur classroom in like kindergarten? am i the only one who remembers marvelling at how heavy his unloaded gun was? did no one else have 2 armed police officers in their high school located in an utterly boring and safe "white bread" (as opposed to white trash) sort of town?
when you go to NYC or DC or whatever, are you scared of the cops bc they have guns? if you need help do you hesitate bc u think they'll pistol-whip you? no, you go right ahead and ask. now why is p.safety any different? they're not just THE po-po, they're YOUR po-po. part of our tuition goes towards effective policing. i want my police to be effective and not letting them have guns is ridiculous. "oh hi im paying taxes for the police but i want them to be emasculated so i feel safe asking them for help"?
i know we like to feel all self-important and shit, but put yourself in that copper's shoes. what do you stand to gain by shooting a student? nothing. what do you stand to lose? everything.
Compromise? let's put the weapons inside Public Safety's building. Now, to make sure they are safe, put them in a locker somewhere deep in the building. Wait...what's that? A report of a hold up at Frist? Someone knocked out the ATM armored car driver and took his money and gun? Public Safety is on the way...just as soon as they make a pit stop to arm themselves.
So why is it that a minimum wage, sloppy, unprofessional ATM maintenance person can wear a gun on a campus, but our police officers can not?
The argument of not-arming our police officers is just a way to make a few people feel like they have power. Are people mad because they had a party broken up? Come on now.
I got a ride from a P-Safe officer the other day and they were pretty down to earth. (Certainly not a super trooper or a power hungry badge bully) These cops have moms, dads, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, etc, etc. They know as well as we do that a school shooting is very unlikely. They still respond to calls that could erupt into something in the blink of an eye. Some of these calls, I was told, occur in remote areas of campus. If an officer responds alone, and the suspect views them as "security guards", a combative response could result. So basically our P-Safe officers better know how to scrap, because sometimes a baton and pepper spray do not stop people.
It is a crappy situation. Knowing that only .0001% of the community understand you.
To Ashame----
I agree with you. As a fellow police officer (not PU), I understand the struggle. Every police officer in NJ stands behind Princeton University's Police Officers. These men and women want one thing while working. The ability to go home and see their families. Why not give them every tool needed to do so? It is 2009 outside of Princeton. What year is it on the University calender?