Oct 30, 2005 By Amanda Clegg 6 min read

Inside California University of Pennsylvania’s police station, Officer Michael Miles unbuttons his uniform top to reveal a Kevlar vest. Although prepped bodily to absorb the shock of a bullet, Miles said his ability to protect and serve comes up blank because Cal U police officers – who drive marked cars, report to a chief, wear uniforms and train and receive certification like any other law enforcer – respond to calls, including homicides, unarmed. Under state law, university presidents decide whether or not university police carry firearms. But that might change.

Miles, who calls himself a “proactive and not reactive” police officer, said that after assisting borough police in a homicide call without a firearm, his attention turned from enforcing the law to changing it.

“I questioned myself: What if the shooter was still there? What if I had to protect someone else?” he said. “You don’t know whom you’re approaching. Being unarmed is very dangerous. It’s for the officer’s protection as well as everyone else’s.”

Members of the state House of Representatives’ Veterans’ Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee agree. The committee recently approved House Bill 509 – under which all state-certified university police officers would carry firearms. According to a press release, the bill would “remove the discretionary language in state law that allows university presidents to decide whether officers should be allowed to carry firearms.”

House Bill 509 will now head to full House for a vote.

Valedictorian of his graduating police academy class, Miles, along with other university police officers and the president of the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association, encouraged lawmakers to pass state Rep. Tim Solobay’s legislation to arm officers at all of Pennsylvania’s 14 state-owned universities at an August hearing before the House Subcommittee on Security and Emergency Response.

“University police officers undergo the same firearms training program that municipal police officers and state police do,” Solobay, D-Canonsburg, stated. “It is unconscionable that we would train these men and women to protect and serve the public with the use of a firearm, and then send them out into the real world without the tools they were trained to use as professional law enforcement officials.”

Solobay called on recent events at two – Cal U and Clarion – of the 14 state schools to make his point.

Over homecoming weekend in early October, Cal U police officers responded with municipal police to reports of gunfire at Jefferson Apartments, an off-campus apartment complex. Police found shell casings from a 9 mm handgun at the scene, according to a borough police report.

And homicides occurred near the campuses of Clarion and Indiana universities of Pennsylvania this month. Junior marketing major Kristopher Mills, 21, of Pittsburgh was shot and killed at an off-campus housing complex near Clarion University on Oct. 19. Franklin Leonard, 24, of New Kensington was stabbed to death Oct. 8 near an apartment complex located near IUP’s campus. Leonard was not a student.

Cal U and IUP police officers patrol unarmed, while Lock Haven and Clarion universities respond to emergencies with a firearm only after receiving permission from the police chief or university president to retrieve the weapon.

Earlier this month, Cal U President Angelo Armenti said no one has convinced him that university police officers need to carry firearms, adding that the policy predates his 1992 arrival at the university.

Armenti said he asked those in favor of arming the university police to “make their case,” suggesting they bring the matter to the University Forum: a shared university governance body with 12 administrative, 12 faculty, two alumni, five staff, two graduate student and eight undergraduate student senators, according to the university’s Web Site.

“To date no one has taken me up on that offer,” Armenti said. “Many people have an opinion that arming officers makes a campus safer. Tell me how it makes the campus safer.”

They may have tried.

Students brought the question to forum twice, once at an Oct. 2, 2001, meeting and again at a March 18, 2003, meeting. Minutes from the meeting show that student senators made motions to take the issue to the Safety and Social Equity Committee, but the majority shot them down both times.

Jason Trout, a criminal justice major, stated his “concern regarding university police officers not being armed” during public comment at the 2003 meeting.

Jessica Cummings, an 18-year-old Cal U elementary education major, said she agrees with the current policy, however.

“That’s bull crap. That’s ridiculous. They shouldn’t be allowed to carry a gun,” she said. “There are a lot of crazy kids out there. You never know what could happen.”

Jonathan Wounick, 19, a Cal U business major, said the issue brought up two sides.

“The good side is they could protect us better and the bad side is that people might be uncomfortable,” he said.

IUP President Dr. Tony Atwater released a statement regarding his choice to not arm his university police officers.

“Our police officers are specially trained to be part of a university community that includes thousands of college-aged persons. They are also skilled and trained in proactive community policing measures specially designed for this unique population,” he stated. “I am not prepared to recommend any course of action until I have adequate time to study the issue, which includes talking to representation from all of our constituencies, including students, employees, campus police officers and representatives from the surrounding community, and consider the culture of this community before making any decision.”

Dr. Robert M. Smith, Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania president, said police officers have carried guns on his campus for more than 30 years and he wouldn’t change “a routine, normal part of our culture.”

Smith said his police officers are often first responders, ahead of state police.

A recent change in state law allows university police officers to aide borough and state police.

“University police officers can’t have less than the tools (state police) have available. State police depend on us,” Smith said. “It makes the whole region safer.”

The question to disarm SRU’s officers has never come up, Smith added.

“People feel a little more secure, though we’re not an unsafe place,” he said. “It’s 2005, you never know who might wander on campus.”

Miles said the matter “comes down to a liability issue.”

“It’s twofold. He (Armenti) has to weigh the difference,” he said. “What if they’re armed and someone gets hurt? What if they’re not armed and someone gets hurt?”