The University of Wyoming has a well-staffed police department of 15 peace officers, five security guards, five full-time dispatchers, two administrative support members and several part time student employees. With this manpower for a school of less than 15,000, do students view members of the University of Wyoming Police Department (UWPD) as “real cops”?
UW freshman Megan Vande Steeg has not had any run-ins with the UWPD but after learning of their history of solving campus conflicts has full faith in them to protect her.
“I see the UW Police as real police officers, but maybe not quite at the same level that I see the Laramie PD,” said Steeg. “I respect the UW Police as much as I would any police officer, but at the same time I’m not quite sure what they do all the time, and I’m not sure the importance of their presence because it’s not something that I encounter everyday.”
Freshman Forest Gheen-Regouski and the rest of his floor have been visited by a UW Officer who spoke on the UWPD code of conduct and safety for students. As part of this code, officers are required to stop students and others on campus behaving suspiciously, and must follow any tips on drug or alcohol use.
The officer cited statistics on the deaths caused by drinking and driving and shared that most officers will help the students as much as they can, such as lessening charges when possible or only issuing a warning.
“I respected him for just kind of being on the same social level as us,” said Gheen-Regouski, “but I also was sort of annoyed with him because I feel like what he was saying about how the officers would try to help us out was false and they would hand out charges for anything.”
Others have a less positive view of UWPD.
“I think the role of UWPD is obviously to keep us safe,” student Addie McDougall said. “The pressure of UWPD is felt on campus and I think that they kind of have a negative impact because people trip over cops all the time and UWPD is known for being notoriously harsh.”
Most students understand UWPD’s decisions, while sometimes unpopular, are usually necessary.
“Sometimes we’re the threat and obviously we don’t like to see that we’re the threat because we are young, dumb and stupid,” said student Arturo Rivera. “The UWPD are doing their job — we just don’t feel like they are doing their job and they are out to come and get us instead of going out to deal with bigger threats.”
Sergeant Kelsey Anderson of UWPD realizes that student opinion of the department varies.
“It depends on what we are contacting the students for,” Anderson said. “I hope the students know that we are here only to keep them safe, but I realize that maybe some students have ideas of what police officers should be like and what they should be doing. Overall my interaction with the students seems to be fairly positive so I hope other students would see the UWPD as positive on campus.”
Anderson also believes UWPD makes an active difference on campus but can see how students who do not interact with UWPD could feel otherwise. The department also does community programs like adopt-a-cop programs to help improve relations with students.
Anderson says that the goal of the UWPD is to make sure that the campus is safe.
“No matter what students think about police officers in general, UWPD is here specifically to make sure our campus is healthy and safe,” he said. “So we want to make sure our students no matter how long they are going to be here, whether it be one year or five years, that they are safe and happy and healthy.”
