COLUMBUS – A white University of Cincinnati police officer’s murder indictment Wednesday for suddenly drawing his gun and shooting an unarmed black man in the head during a minor traffic stop has started a debate about the role of campus police.
READ MORE: In the Columbus Dispatch
Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters called for the University of Cincinnati police department to be dissolved.
“It’s a wonderful university, I love their president, but they’re not cops,” Deters said. “Being police officers shouldn’t be the role of this university. I don’t think so.”
What about Ohio State University?
Ohio State has had its own police force for 126 years, and in records dating back to 1900, none of its officers has ever shot a civilian, said Dan Hedman the spokesman for the department.
“Safety of students, faculty, staff and visitors remains our number-one priority,” Hedman said.
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A Dispatch review of police use-of-force records showed that university police record nearly four times as many uses of force per arrest as Columbus police do, one of the highest rates of reporting force in central Ohio. OSU officers pulled their guns, used pepper spray or took some other forceful action almost once for every ten arrests they made from 2011 to 2013.
That statistic might appear high, Hedman said, because Ohio State officers report more types of force. For example, Columbus does not report when a gun is drawn. Ohio State does. Ohio State officers also have alternatives to arrest because they can send students to the campus judiciary system, reducing arrest numbers.