NAU PD understaffed
Blaine Hubbard - April 17th, 2008Although the NAU Police Department is currently understaffed, the increase in the officers’ workloads have not affected their response times.
Currently, the NAUPD employes 15 officers, including the police chief. The department could staff a total of 19 positions, four more than what they are presently working with.
Gregory T. Fowler, police chief with NAUPD, said the authorized capacity of the department has not been completely filled since before he started working with them a year ago.
“We are experiencing the same dilemma that every other law enforcement agency in Arizona is, and that is tracking and keeping qualified law enforcement personnel,” Fowler said.
Beginning May 1, an additional unit will be filled when a veteran officer, Sergeant Bill Niles, transfers from his position in the Valley to a patrol position with NAUPD.
Niles has worked with the Phoenix Police Department for about 27 years and has been a supervisor for approximately 15 years.
“It is quite a bonus for us to get somebody with that level of experience to come in,” Fowler said.
Fowler said NAUPD has not been fully staffed for several years, and previously state budget issues did not allow for all of the positions to be filled.
Fowler said the current workload for officers varies on a day-to-day basis. Generally there are two officers on duty at any given time, but, on some days, there is only one officer on duty for a short period of time.
Stephanie Davis, junior marketing major, has been a resident assistant at Sechrist Hall for two years and has not noticed any change in the response time from the university police officers.
“They usually get here pretty quickly,” Davis said. “In the last two years, they generally get here in less than ten minutes after a call is made.”
Sechrist Hall is one of the residence halls that makes calls to NAUPD and has officers stop by on a relatively frequent basis, depending on the day of the week.
Fowler said in order to maintain the safety of on-duty police officers and the campus community, NAUPD teams up with officers from Flagstaff Police Department (FPD) and other local agencies. The agencies have been known send eachother officers when one is short-staffed.
“We train together; they know how to respond to campus and we know how to respond off campus,” Fowler said, referring to the other law enforcement agencies in town. “So we communicate in advance with our communication channels and radio systems, and we partner with each other to back each other up when we do not have sufficient staffing.”
NAU has an Interagency Law Enforcement Agreement with FPD, the Coconino County Sheriff’s Department and the Arizona Department of Public Safety. The purpose of the agreement is to increase the efficiency of and the collaboration between the four departments by providing mutual aid across each division’s jurisdiction areas.
Fowler said officers with NAUPD are filling in wherever they can. For example, he took over secretarial duties last week when there was only one officer on duty who had made an arrest and had somebody in custody.
“We actually had Flagstaff police officers come in and help us on a panic alarm call,” Fowler said. “That does not happen very often, but we are prepared for it when it does. So we cover the calls, it is just a matter of what is our normal response versus what is our altered protocol response.”
NAUPD Commander Cindy Cox, who joined the department in August last year, said she sometimes has to respond to calls as an alternate resource as well.
NAUPD has primary jurisdictional responsibility for all matters of law enforcement within the campus boundaries, as well as with other properties in Flagstaff that are utilized by the university.