Western Kentucky University - Talisman Yearbook (Bowling Green, KY)

Page 23 text:

another officer and lets him take care of the mock arrest. 4:55p.m. A young man is brought in after being found in Diddle Arena without proper authorization. As he is walking through the shift officer’s office, he greets Gentry with a “Hi, chief!” When Gentry returns the greeting, the young man smiles and says, “Gee, I hope I haven’t done anything wrong. I would sure hate to get into trouble with you guys.” Gentry said, “Everyone is scared of the police. But if you have not done anything wrong, what do you have to be afraid of? We don’t go around harassing people.” 59:40 p.m. Gentry is in the dispatch room. The officer who is supposed to be working there had to leave to get a typewriter. The telephone rings. “Campus police,” Gentry answers. In a matter of seconds, Gentry has contacted a unit over the police radio and has the two officers, who had answered the call, on their way to handle the problem. Shortly afterwards, a student calls about his car. He doesn’t remember if he had parked his car and for- gotten where it was, or if it had been towed away. After taking down the student’s license plate number and the university registration decal number, Gentry checks the tow-away sheet and tells the student that his car was not supposed to be towed away. But he assures the student that he would be looking out for his car. AS PART, of his duties, Lt. Joseph Gen- try patrols on campus in a police cruiser. Gentry had the shift from 4 p.m. to 12 p.m. 19 Campus Police

Page 22 text:

Were UWWERYITY POLICE LEARN ii: So Mucy Cops bur To Pauey Weong-baces Ag THLE) ARE OFLIUERS 007 10 HELP PEOPLE SOLVE THEIR PROBLEMS CAMPUS police are reminded of their duty upon entering the roll call training room for daily sessions. The sign was made for director Paul Bunch in the late 70s when he was assistant director of the department. MEASURE SAFETY By MARCIA ROBERTSON Photos By nt (O) 15} |= [St 18 Campus Police RAL = Editor's Note: Marcia Robertson, Talisman reporter, spent eight hours in a police cruiser with Lt. Joe Gentry. The following story is her journal of that night’s events. THE THEME song plays softly in the back- ground as the garage door flies open and the police cruiser, with lights and siren flashing, prepares to go on yet another far-from-routine chase. The above scenario is, of course, from a popular police televison show. Although a day in the life of a campus policeman doesn’t have all the glamour of the show, it is anything but routine. 3:30p.m. Roll Call. Lt. Joseph Gentry comes into the officer’s shift- changing meeting. At 48, he is still a handsome, robust man whose appearance demands respect. One could easily picture him as an army drill sergeant and in fact he did serve in the armed forces. During the briefing, a policeman reports that he has seen a girl on campus who was “a dead ringer” for person a reported missing. “Oh,” Gentry said, “ just like the one in the report. Maybe we should talk to I've seen her. That girl looks her just to make sure.” 4p.m. Gentry and five other officers leave the meeting to go on duty. As Gentry is going into his office, he is approached by three students from “Western Weekly” who want to stage a policeman pulling overa person suspected of DUI. Gentry places a call to Continued on page 19

Page 24 text:

St REINER REE APEC OFT ORO BEFORE sending officers on patrol, Captain Ed Wilson reviews placement of officers at girls’ basketball games. The diagram depicted Diddle Arena. STUDENT PATROL member Joe White, a Mt. Washington sophomore, searches for illegally parked cars in Grise Hall parking lot. White was one of eight student patrol members By PAM CAREY THE THOUGHT ofsomeone ina red shirt and cap holding a walkie-talkie seldom struck fear in the hearts of students, unless he started walking toward their cars. They scoured the campus daily, seeking out illegally parked cars and writing numerous tickets and, at times, calling for a tow-truck to lead cars into never, never land. These red-shirted, ticket-writing, fearless people are, of course, the student patrol. Joe White, a Mt. Washington sophomore, was one of eight students on patrol for the department of public safety. He and the other members of the patrol did a job that, for the most part, was unappreciated. Often White, a two-year veteran of the patrol, wrote as many as 100 tickets in one day. He estimated that the student patrol issued about 1400 citations in one month. The number of tickets varied from month to month, and special events on campus usually brought an increase in parking violations. The fines, White said, were not overly expensive. Tickets ranged in cost from five to 10 dollars, depending upon the type of violation. If the fines were paid within 24 hours, the violator only had to pay half the cost of the ticket. The only time a violation became expensive was when a student left his vehicle in the wrong zone. The car was often towed away at the owner's expense. Writing tickets always posed the possibility of students approaching White to voice their displeasure at having had to pay a fine. “You always run the risk of getting your head chewed off,” White said 20 Campus Police with a laugh. “But luckily, I only had problems with students once or twice.” White admitted the job had its undesirable points. Bad weather, for example, made patrolling icy or puddle-filled parking lots a drudgery. And then there were times when the routine simply got boring. There were the not-so-rare occasions when he had to ticket a car that belonged to someone he knew. “I have—and haven’t—had to give a friend a ticket,” he said. “Some- times I went ahead and wrote the ticket, but most of the time, I tried to get someone else on patrol to do it for me.” White and his cohorts found ways to humor themselves to prevent what could have been a mundane day. “Sometimes we would get a kick out of setting out to track down the repeated offenders,” he said. Ticket writing, however, was only one of several duties of the student patrol. When there were special events on campus, the patrol provided security and helped to direct traffic flow. One of White’s most mem- orable moments was working with and around the Secret Service when vice president George Bush visited the campus in 1984. Although it might appear that they’re the Rodney Dangerfields of the campus, that really didn’t concern White when he took the job two years ago. He took the job for several reasons other than paying for school. “The job sounded interesting, and I felt it was a good way to learn to find my way around campus,” he said. “As I walk around on patrol, I get to talk to people, and meet new people—it’s really not a bad job.”