TCU Police

The article I read, “Feeling Secure on Campus,” was about a school that had 11 officers complete special training at the local police academy. Through the completion of the course, the campus security officers were better prepared for situations and where permitted to do more than the average campus security. They also had partnered with their local police department to be the front line response to any serious crimes or incidents on campus. It is very common to hear TCU Police be referred to as “robo cops” and a joke. They are not highly respected nor do we consider them to be real law enforcement. Students biggest problem with them is parking citations, however, that is another problem with in itself. The issue I want to address is their failure to assist students in critical situations. In my 3 years of being at TCU, I’ve had to call TCU police twice and both times I was highly disappointed with the results. The first incident was when my friend had a panic attack and had difficulty breathing to the point where she was changing colors. When the officer arrived and assessed the situation, they admitted to not knowing what to do. Another situation was when I sprained my ankle very badly outside the REC, I was in severe pain and unable to walk. I told my friend to call TCU Police, there was no way I could make it back to my room and it was to late to be taken to the health center. The operator on the phone refused to send me any assistance because I did not need an ambulance. I would later need to be in crutches for 3 weeks and TCU police could not come assist me. I was shocked!

Now I understand that TCU police aren’t medics, but as a student, I would like to be able to call upon them when I have a problem. I do not trust TCU police with my life or my safety, and I am sure that other students on campus feel the same way because of incidents such as mine.  We are told not to call 911, unless we have already called TCU Police but honestly, I don’t think anyone would call them first. As a student body, I think we would feel more secure if we had better trained officers with more willingness to help. Right now we see them as a joke, who don’t have anything better to do then write us multiple parking tickets in a day.  If TCU students heard that our officers were highly trained officers that had additional training, our views of them may change.