Columbus Regional Hospital forms new police department
Columbus Indiana August 5 2021 Columbus Regional Hospital now has its own police department, now in place for about seven months. The in-house department was established last December by the hospital’s board.
Assistant Chief James Webster said that the department performs “traditional law duties” such as seeing to the safety and security of individuals on the CRH campus, investigating crimes, completing reports and making arrests if necessary.
Officers also receive certified training suited to a hospital environment, such as assisting patients and families that “may be going through a personal crisis” and creating personal connections with patients to help de-escalate situations. They may only exercise police authority on property that is owned, leased or occupied by the hospital, Webster said.
He noted that the newness of the endeavor brings certain questions with it — for instance, how does prisoner transport work? And how does the department interact with the prosecutor’s office?
“These are things that (police) departments have had established for years and years,” he said. “Maybe 100 years. And here we are, trying to figure it all out just the first part of this year.”
Still, in spite of such challenges, Webster said that the transition is going very well.
CRH Chief of Police Tony Pope and Webster were sworn into their respective roles this past March. Both have special training in a variety of areas. Webster joined Columbus Regional Health this year after serving 27 years with the North Vernon Police Department, with 14 years as police chief.
Pope, a United States Navy veteran, joined Columbus Regional Health in 2016 and has more than 30 years of experience in law enforcement. Before becoming chief over the new department, his previous role was manager of protective services and emergency services.
“Our former model of protective services was a great model,” Pope said. “And when it came about, it met the needs for the hospital for quite some time. But with the changes in dynamics and some trends we were seeing nationwide and locally, we just felt that it really wasn’t addressing the safety concerns that we had.”
Webster said that over the past seven months, the department has been working to hire staff and in training. As of July 26, there were 15 hospital system officers, including six sworn and nine unsworn, though he said that these numbers will change as more people are hired and/or go through the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy training required for sworn officers. They plan to have nine sworn officers and seven non-sworn by the end of the year.
The key difference, Webster said, is that sworn officers have the ability to enforce the law. They are also able to investigate, make arrests, issue citations if needed and have more power regarding detentions.
“We uphold the law, protect the hospital and the patients, the staff, basically just do anything that the street can do in-house,” said hospital sworn officer Michael McCauley.
McCauley previously served in the hospital’s former protective services department and also has prior experience in law enforcement. He was selected to go to the academy and spent several weeks there before returning to begin his duties as a sworn officer.
The new role comes with a higher level of authority than his previous position. Officers under the old model were not sworn and “basically had the same level of authority as private citizens,” explained Pope. They had no authority to arrest individuals.
These officers were able to intervene and would work to “negotiate a peaceful outcome,” which was often successful, he said. When they were unable to reach such an outcome, the hospital relied on local law enforcement to respond to volatile situations. He added that the hospital has outstanding working relationships with these entities.
“It wasn’t that they weren’t meeting the needs of the hospital,” Pope said. “We just felt that we needed a police force that was on-site and could immediately respond to these higher-risk situations that we were dealing with. The hospital can be a very dynamic environment, and so we felt that it was just very important for us to have an on-site presence of sworn officers.”
The hospital’s sworn officers have the same responsibilities as their non-sworn security officers but also have “additional levels of authority and responsibility,” Pope said.
Webster said that their six full-time officers patrol not only the hospital, but also all other hospital satellite offices and buildings.
There are also still a few contract officers on site, but not as many as there used to be. The practice is beginning to phase out, according to the officers.
“They still work with CRH to provide law enforcement services, but as we’re gaining more personnel and getting our people through training, we’ll have less need for the contract officers, so it’s starting to wane off a bit,” Webster said.
While the Columbus Police Department still has some contract officers at CRH, the Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Department is no longer doing contract work with the hospital.
Webster said that both agencies have assisted in the hospital’s new police department and helped them find their footing.
The hospital’s practice of using local off-duty officers to supplement its security resulted in two CPD officers being criminally charged and receiving suspended sentences on ghost employment allegations.
Dan Meister, 47, Hope and Ron May, 59, 8015 S. County Road 875W, Columbus were originally charged with official misconduct, ghost employment and theft — all Level 6 felonies, according to court documents.
Both were accused of working a second job providing security at Columbus Regional Hospital while clocked in as city officers, according to court records. Meister is accused of overlapped hours worked on 52 separate occasions, while May is accused of overlapped hours on 62 separate occasions between Jan. 1, 2013 and Aug. 31, 2018, according to a State Board of Accounts audit.
Special judge Richard W. Poynter of Brownstown allowed May and Meister to plead guilty to only one charge: ghost employment. In exchange, the two other felony charges were dropped by special prosecutor Jeff Chalfant of Jackson County. Poynter then agreed to convert the ghost employment felony charge to a Class A misdemeanor for both defendants before he ordered that they serve suspended one-year sentences. The Indiana Attorney General’s office has verified that May has paid $4,903 in restitution, while Meister paid $4,110 as part of the sentencing.
While the hospital police force was established in December, Pope said discussions about department models began shortly after he joined CRH in 2016 and started looking at police department possibilities in 2017.
“At the time, our security officers were dealing with an increase in high-risk interactions that were really kind of taxing their level of authority or their limits of authority,” he said. “And we really felt strongly that creating a hospital police department would fill that gap.”
In 2013, Indiana passed Senate Bill 582, which allows hospitals to establish an in-house police department.
Under Indiana code, the governing board of the hospital can appoint officers, prescribe their duties, and direct their conduct. These officers serve at the governing board’s pleasure, but their jurisdiction is limited only to property owned, leased, or occupied by the hospital.
Pope said that a great deal of work went into creating the department, ensuring that stakeholders in the hospital and community were assured of this.
“Making a police department, that’s a big step,” he said. “And you have to do your due diligence.”
This included risk assessments, looking at trends and data, speaking to other hospitals, doing site visits, collecting information and creating a proposal.
The main reason Pope supported the change and made the proposal was to uphold the safety of patients, visitors and staff. Having fully sworn officers on-site 24/7 gives them a better ability to respond to high risk situations right away with “the appropriate level of training and authority and equipment”, he said. This allows them to reach both quicker and better resolutions.
“My experience in law enforcement is the sooner that you can have the proper level of intervention, the better the outcomes are,” Pope said. “Again, our local police officers and deputies respond very well to us. But the reality of it is that they’re not on scene. There’s a lot that can happen between the time we realize we need law enforcement here until several minutes later when they respond.”
Hospital spokeswoman Kelsey DeClue said that there were multiple factors involved with the shift to an in-house police department, which has also been seen in other hospitals across the country.
“There is an increasing need for elevated safety and security support in the healthcare setting on a national level, and that is reflected here locally as well,” she said. “Healthcare safety and security requires special training and a focus on de-escalating tense and potential violent situations safely in a very vulnerable environment.”
Furthermore, having its own police means that CRH can decrease its dependence on local law enforcement. DeClue said that the hospital has good relationships with local agencies and will continue to work for them when needed. However, it is “much more cost-effective” to have their own department, which will provide 24/7 coverage and officers with the specialized training necessary to operate in a health care environment.
“As our organization continues to grow and evolve, the need for an official law enforcement arm to maintain and elevate a safe and secure environment for our staff and patients was made more evident, thus the push over the past year (and continuing) to launch CRHPD,” DeClue said
The police force will be overseen by the CRH Board of Trustees, the hospital’s governing body, and subject to all state statutes such as any city police department or county sheriff’s department in Indiana.
McCauley said that the hospital has been very supportive of the change, and the staff are appreciative.
“We appreciate all of the support,” said Webster. “We’ve got lots of community support. … All of the other law enforcement agencies have been real supportive. So it’s been an easy transition in that aspect, that everybody’s trying to help us out and giving us a thumbs-up and ‘Keep doing what you’re doing’ type statements.”
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