The LSU Police Department is working to “humanize the badge.” LSUPD is taking a proactive, rather than reactive, approach to help make campus a safer place, according to Maj. Lawrence Rabalais, LSUPD spokesman. By having officers talk to students in their assigned areas, he said the student knows the officer as “John Doe” rather than “Officer Doe.” “We are always out talking to students,” Rabalais said. “They are our eyes and ears.” Some students said they notice police units regularly patrolling certain areas of campus. Rabalais said students can expect to recognize a lot of the same officers on duty for two reasons. The first, he said, is because of a fixed shift rotation system implemented nearly a year ago. A minimum of three detail units patrol East Campus Apartments, West Campus Apartments and sorority row each week. East and West Campus Apartment parking lots are patrolled from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. while sorority row has units stationed from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. “We typically have four to five units patrolling,” he said. “But on Wednesday, everyone works, and we can have up to 10 units on the road.” Rabalais said LSUPD has noticed a positive impact in the past year because of the change. Prior to this rotation system, officers were rotating their work shifts every 28 days while their days off remain fixed. But under the new system, officers are assigned morning, evening or night shifts that do not change once the 28-day period ends. “Officers are keeping the same shift time,” he said. “Officers request which shift they would prefer to work. If an officer chooses the evening shift, he is on evening shift every day of the week except his two days off. When the rotation period is up, he still works evening shift, but his days off change.” He explained the second reason students are seeing officers continuously patrolling the same areas is because the LSUPD advocates community policing. “The detail units are in addition to the regular patrol units,” he said. “Our goal is to be able to respond quickly to in-progress calls in the area.” But Rabalais said the LSUPD Detective Division is working to become more personable with students who assist the detectives with information. He said Detective Patrick Martin has made it his mission to reach out to fraternities on a different level. “In turn, he found that the fraternities assisted him with getting information,” Rabalais said. “He became friends with them, and he along with many other officers in the department in turn assist the students by making it a safer campus.” Martin said the division talks to classes about safety on campus, narcotics, alcohol and many other issues. He said the division has also branched out to on-campus housing, fraternities and sororities with safety education programs. “It works out good for us because we are not walking around in uniform, and people feel more comfortable talking to us,” Martin said. Martin said the LSUPD has also benefited from the shift rotation system change. He said this system allows officers with families to have a more fixed schedule each month. “Officers are now more familiar with who they will be dealing with on a normal business day,” he said. Lauren Hingle, secondary education freshman, said the police system on campus is different from what she was accustomed to in New Orleans. She said she thinks the police are constantly looking to see where people will be. “I think they are looking at Facebook events to see where the parties are to get us,” she said. “I was at a party where the LSUPD were waiting in the parking lot and giving MIPs to people walking out of the party.” Ally Champagne, psychology freshman, said she always notices three or four police officers driving in the parking lot near Herget Hall. “And whenever I am at my sorority house, I always see police behind the row,” she said. “I think they are scanning the area, but I see a lot of people getting pulled over in the back.” Rabalais said the LSUPD is also pulling off-duty officers to come in for overtime assignments. “If we can saturate campus, these will be a deterrent for crime,” he said.
—Contact Natalie Messina at [email protected]