So I’m going to my summer class at my local community college and I was going a little too fast in the parking lot when I arrived. (I was late.) A car made up to look like a squad car but it was labeled “public safety” and had a red and white light bar on top pulls me over. He had a badge attached to his belt that identified himself as a “public safety cadet.”
I didn’t get a ticket, but he stated that if I did it would be a ticket that I would pay to my school, and it would be just a $25 fine. He asked for my license and registration, looked at it, and then gave it right back to me.
Now, does this guy have any real legal authoritative power? Did I have to pull over since he isn’t a sworn police officer? Does this guy have any power to do anything other than write community college tickets?
As somebody who until recently had an outstanding $75(!) parking ticket at the University of Cincinnati, which delayed recipt of my diploma when I attempted to graduate a few weeks ago, I advise you to do what the “officer” tells you to do.
If it makes you feel any better, you can write “Fuck you, pricks!!!” on the “For________” line of your check like I did.
Well, I’m not sure about your local community college officers but the Safety Officers from my local college campus have jurisdiction from one end of the state to the other. If you commit a crime on campus, they can pursue you anywhere in the state.
I never registered my car on campus. Therefore, as far as the system was concerned, my car never belonged to a student. And since I received my diploma and never actually paid the $400 in parking fines, I guess it worked.
The security officers at the community college my wife attended were full-fledged law enforcement officers. I would check and see if this is the case where you are before I did anything too drastic. Going to jail would definitely interfere with your studies.
My university put all these restrictions on student parking, but told visitors to park in any of the lots (including faculty lots), and to just discard any tickets they might receive.
I figured: seems like a good deal! Let’s be a “visitor” for the next 4 years!
Unfortunately, 18 months later (and 20 tickets) later, I got a friendly call from the campus police. They ran my plates, and discovered that I was a student.
I did manage to talk them down from 20 tickets ($400) to only about 2 tickets, by pleading gross stupidity.
I tried this, and it did work for quite a while. Eventually, they got tired of me, ran my plate, and figured out who I was(it was even registered to my dad).
In Texas, most campos are indeed police. If they weren’t, and were just security, they still would have quite a bit of authority on the property. Best to just do what they say(whithin reason).
The University of Guelph appears to have real police, (it says POLICE on their cars) as do the ones from McMaster University. Both universities, though, also have non-police security personnel. I would imagine that on-campus (or any property owned by the university) both the security personnel and police have the same range of jurisdiction, but that off campus, only the police could pull you over. Just my WAG, though.
Boy, judging from the responses to this OP, it looks like everyone turns to a quivering, fearful neurotic fool just upon seeing a tin badge.
To answer the specific question (assuming US laws): NO, the person who detained you has no police powers, he is a private security guard. He has the authority to place you under citizen’s arrest, and detain you until the REAL police come. And you know what? You have exactly that same power, you have equal rights to place Mr. Security Guard under citizen’s arrest. Mr. Tin Badge is relying on your rolling over and playing dead when you see his symbols of authority.
Where I live, the cops at the university have full and complete police powers. The campus is considered their jurisdiction by the city’s cops, and MUPD handles all calls and investigations there - everything from traffic tickets to big stuff like fraud and sexual assault. The city cops will respond to things at the university only if their assistance is requested by the campus police.
I assure you, they’re quite a bit more than “private security guards”. Though that may well be closer to the case at a small college; after all, this is a 25,000-student school I’m talking about.
Even if they’re not official police officers (as they often are), they still have considerable power by virtue of being the designated reprisentatives of the property owners. If you refused to pull over, they might not be able to arrest you, but they can certainly make you regret it: They can fine you, and most universities won’t graduate you if you have any outstanding fines.
“Public Safety Officers” are police offers of a college or university, inspite of the rather innocuous name. They’re called that here in Charleston, too. Moreover, two colleges here (College of Charleston and U. of SC Medical School) have agreed that public safety officers of either college has jurisdiction of both. They’re as much police officers as military police are.
I work with the police deparment at NIU with their student patrol and I have absolutely no police powers at all. I can ask to see a student’s ID card to prove that they have access to campus or else I can ask them to leave the area. And if I don’t ask nicely enough I can call the cops over and they’ll take care of it. Otherwise I’m the same as everyone else, except I have a red shirt and a police radio on my belt. The NIU cops are full fledged police officers.
However, in my training they made us memorize a passage that states the conditions concerning a citizens arrest. Sorry I don’t have a verifiable cite. Here goes…
“any individual can arrest another when he/she has GROUNDS TO BELIEVE that an offense other than an ordinance violation IS BEING committed”
Well, as I stated above, you have to meet the requirements for a citizens arrest. You can’t just go on reasonable suspicion here. Also, when placing someone on citizens arrest, you cannot detain them by physical force. That is that if I came across some guy raping a woman, I can use reasonable force to stop the rape, and that’s it. However, I cannot then wrestle the guy to the ground and place him in a choke hold until the police get there. Then it’d be battery against me and then I’d be in trouble. I can order him to do something like “YOU’RE UNDER ARREST. STAY RIGHT THERE, DON’T MOVE.” in a really mean voice. Of course he could just run away, but I couldn’t tackle him, just see where he goes.
Something interesting though about self defense. Say some guy is holding a knife and comes toward me to stab me. I can use force to stop him. Now lets say that he stabs me right in the gut, and he lets go of the knife, and then runs only 10 feet away. Now, since he does not have a weapon, I can’t attack him back, or else I’d be in trouble.
Oh, and any title with Officer in it is not necessarily a police officer. I am an officer with the student patrol, but no way am I a cop.
The question was concerning a “public safety officer” not an officer with the student patrol. In SC, a public safety officer is a college or university police officer.
Odd. RPI’s Department of Public Safety seems to think of itself as “an expanded law enforcement program whose officers possess New York State statutory arrest powers.” But I suppose they’re lying, as you seem so certain of yourself.
So i take this to mean that the safety officer can only issue moving citations if the city or university has a specific ordinance against it. Notice section 4 and section 6. The officer is NOT a peace officer, but he does have the same arrest power as an average citizen. Which is:
431.005 Arrest by peace officers – By private persons.
…
(5) A private person may make an arrest when a felony has been committed in fact and
he has probable cause to believe that the person being arrested has committed it.
431.025 Notice of intention to arrest – Act of arrest – Force.
(1) The person making an arrest shall inform the person about to be arrested of the
intention to arrest him, and of the offense for which he is being arrested.
(2) An arrest is made by placing the person being arrested in restraint, or by his
submission to the custody of the person making the arrest. The submission shall be
in the actual presence of the arrester.
(3) No unnecessary force or violence shall be used in making an arrest.
You’ll excuse me if I don’t buy your campus cop - urban legend law. By ‘urban legend law’ I mean dumb legal loophole rumors people spread like "if you ask an undercover police officer ‘are you a cop?’, they have to say ‘yes’. (It’s obviously not true, otherwise only the stupidest of criminals would be caught).
Your example is equally ridiculous. Just because your perpetrator drops the knife and just stands 10 feet away, does not mean you can’t attack and restrain them. They are still a threat to you and you have every right to defend yourself.
There are plenty of instances where a person commits a felony and is detained by regular people until the police come. As long as reasonable force is used, I can’t imagine the police having a problem with this.
Campus cops, as representitives of the college and not being actual police, have to act in the strict letter of the law. At least they did at our school. The reason for this is because they perform police duties but have no real police power, they make the college vulnerable to lawsuits. The result is that campus cops at my college would act like mindless automatons.
Example: Rule-Campus cops cannot enter a fraternity house unless a house officer (president, etc) is present.
So campus cops show up to what is obviously an illegal party. “Oh, I can’t let you in, let me get the president”. In the meantime, the house is cleared out and whoops! no party!
Another example - Campus cops maintain a checkpoint to get on the upper campus where the frats are. They stop all cars but they never pursue a car that runs the checkpoint (at least not my car) or throws bottles at them and then runs the checkpoint (at least not when my friend did this).
In any event, most of our campus cops were pretty stupid. I wouldn’t take ANY legal advice from them (except maybe in regards to busting keg parties).