Cop on campus

COEUR d'ALENE - North Idaho College will soon have a uniformed city police officer stationed full-time on campus.

Beginning Aug. 25, the community college will be the first in Idaho with its own school resource officer.

NIC President Joe Dunlap told The Press Thursday that the college has wanted to upgrade its security profile for several years. The tipping point for hiring an SRO, Dunlap said, was a new statute approved by lawmakers earlier this year which allows concealed weapons to be carried on public college and university campuses in the state.

"What the SRO provides to us is a direct link to the Coeur d'Alene Police Department," Dunlap said. "A liaison that, should there be a crisis on campus, can draw on the resources from the Coeur d'Alene Police Department more readily than we have been able to. It's a great partnership and we welcome the new individual on campus."

The college will pay the city of Coeur d'Alene $50,000 to have the SRO stationed on campus, and NIC will pay all overtime. The agreement between the city and NIC also states that the officer will "facilitate classroom and faculty presentations related to the law, at NIC."

Coeur d'Alene Police Department Officer August "Gus" Wessel was selected for the college SRO position after an application process that included an interview with a panel of NIC staff selected by Dunlap.

Coeur d'Alene Police Sgt. Christie Wood, who supervises the department's SROs and is also an elected member of NIC's Board of Trustees, said Wessel is a Kootenai County native who earned a two-year degree at NIC. He also attended classes toward his bachelor's degree on the downtown campus. He has been on the Coeur d'Alene police force since 2007.

"He's very familiar with the school," Wood said. "He has accelerated very well through the department as far as the types of assignments he is given and his leadership abilities. When you look at his personnel jacket you see a guy who has done a very solid job for us. He's fairly young but he's a go-getter."

"He will be able to relate to our students very well," Dunlap added.

The police department has had an SRO program with the Coeur d'Alene School District since 1995 and Interim Chief Ron Clark said it has been successful in providing safer school campuses.

"With the college, we felt that that was something we would also like to have," Clark said. "We want to have a partnership because we've found when you have these partnerships with the faculty and the students, we are better able to do our job to not only protect them but to do law enforcement work as well."

Wessel will train with seven other police department SROs in areas such as active shooter training, range training, and building security assessments. Wood added that each of the SROs are familiar with all of the campuses they cover so in the event one of them is needed in court, there is always coverage.

"He will be dealing with mostly adults but will get the training that goes along with being a school resource officer," Wood said. "It's very specific to education entities and focuses on their policies, procedures and the many issues that come with being on campus."

When determining whether or not to pursue hiring an SRO, Dunlap said the college looked at a variety of options, including training and qualifying NIC's existing security personnel to carry firearms. The amount of training required and the cost associated with that training made hiring an SRO a more attractive, and logical, option.

"Our security force is armed, if you will, with Tasers, and that is the extent of their additional equipment," Dunlap said. "We needed the expertise and the authority that goes with a certified officer that can bring more resources to the table."

Those resources include the ability to quickly get information, Clark said, as well as equipment needed to perform traffic stops.

"It's just more resources that will be available and working in conjunction with their security department, other staff and students," Clark said. "He (the SRO) will be in an office on campus. That way he is more accessible to people. That really helps the crime prevention aspect of it too."

Dunlap said the hire, which is funded equally by NIC and the city of Coeur d'Alene, is just one aspect of the school's plans to beef up security.

"It's one piece of an overall security plan for the college that includes upgrading the alert system on campus, putting locks on the inside of classroom buildings and providing our security folks with vests," Dunlap said. "Then with this new law, in addition to making the decision to partner for the SRO, we also submitted a supplemental request to the state for funding that would include surveillance cameras, electronic access for all of our buildings and an upgrade to our internal access to our buildings."