OFFICERS TO LOSE
POLICE POWER
THE CLACKAMAS COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE PLANS TO
CUT TIES WITH CLACKAMAS COMMUNITY COLLEGE
BY CASSIDY WHITE AND MERARI CALDERON RUIZ
Campus safety officers will lose police powers
because the sheriff decided to drop out of college.
Clackamas Community College currently
has an agreement with the Clackamas County
Sheriff’s Office, which allows CCC officers to
have full police powers on campus, such as the
power to make arrests and write traffic citations.
In order for the college to have police officers,
we need the agreement with the Sheriff’s Office,
because w e’re not legally allowed to create our
own police department or hire police officers.
Because we are at the w ill of the sheriff, if the
sheriff decides not to renew the agreement, our
campus safety officers w ill no longer have full
police powers regardless if it’ s a mutual decision.
An Intergovernmental Agreem ent (IGA) was
first drafted betw een the college and form er
Sheriff Bill Brooks in 1992 and later modified
by current Sheriff Craig Roberts in 2005. The
agreement states that “ Special Commissions are
required to give Security Officers the authority
to enforce the laws of Clackamas County and the
state o f Oregon on CCC property. ”
Sergeant Nathan Thompson, CCSO spokesman,
said, “ W hat our association is, is that there’ s
been an IGA betw een us and the com m unity
college that says the sh eriff w ill m ake these
p eople sp ecial depu ties, so e sse n tia lly th e
sheriff is giving the security officers there, he
is deputizing them and allowing them to have
arrest powers.”
The Clackam as County Sheriff’ s Office has
decided not to renew the agreem ent w ith the
college. Therefore, our campus safety officers
w ill lose their special deputy privileges at the
end of this school year on June 30.
Thom pson said the sh e riff’ s office doesn ’t
4 ClackanTas Pnnt MARCH 9,20Ì6 thectackafnaspnnLcom
want to renew the agreement because, “ There’ s
some liability for the Sheriff’ s Office involved
in this and w e are lookin g at all o f our IGAs
and special deputy positions and m aking some
decisions on w hether to continue having those
special deputy positions.”
According to Jim Huckestein, Vice President
o f College Services, since Roberts to o k the
position 10 years ago, he has looked at all o f
the commissioned officers the Sheriff’ s Office
had and made a decision to not renew them, to
the extent of looking at some agreements before
they even expired. The college just happens to be
the last agreement on the list to decommission.
Although the end of the agreement takes away
our officers’ police powers, it doesn’t necessarily
take away their ability to be armed. Huckestein
said, “ The two options that we have in term s
of retaining them [campus safety officers] is to
either have unarmed officers or armed officers
and eith er o f those choices require different
training, different oversight, different liability
and those are the things that we are looking at
now to determ ine which w ay to go.”
The decision to end the agreem ent w ith the
Sheriff’s Office was not a mutual one. The college
w ants to renew the agreem ent and retain the
sp ecial pow ers our o fficers cu rren tly have.
Because the college w as relatively surprised
b y th e s h e r iff’ s decision to n ot ren ew the
agreem ent, the college has been entertaining
m any alternatives to keep our campus safe.
One th in g th e co llege adm inistration has
been doing in response to the decommissioning
is assem bling an Incident M anagem ent Task
Force. According to Huckestein, this task force is
looking at our emergency response process, our
planning and how we assess the risks we need
to m itigate. Currently, the task force is made
up o f a small group of faculty and members of
adm inistration that have specific training in
different em ergency situations. Once the task
force is better established, the task force will
expand to other members o f the college.
The question about arming our campus safety
officers isn ’t the only one surrounding campus
safety. The previous director o f campus safety,
Bobby Smith, recently resigned after less than
a year holding the position. The director before
him, Suzy Isham, left after only 20 m onths. In
the lifetime of the position, three directors have
held the position and none have stayed longer
than two years. It’ s clear that the college has
had a hard time m aintaining a campus safety
director.
Isham said, “ I think the reason w hy there is
som e difficulty m aintaining the folks in that
position is because a lot o f the people that may
come on board don’ t understand the flavor of
the department of campus safety that they want.
A lot o f the folks that may come on board may
want to develop their own police department,
which is not in that culture. I think that’ s w hy
it took so long to find somebody after I left, as
w ell, because you have to have the right fit and
som etim es you don’ t know it’ s not the right fit
for a couple of months or down the road.”
W h en ask ed w h a t e xa ctly th e co lleg e is
lo o kin g fo r in a director o f cam pus safety,
Huckestein said, “ Their first priority isn ’ t to
be using their police powers to arrest people for
speeding or whatever on campus. Their primarily
responsibility is to make sure that they interact
with students and make sure that they feel safe. ”