Portland State University resuming armed patrols on campus
Portland OR April 12 2023 Portland State University said it is reinstating some armed patrol officers after campus safety stopped carrying firearms in September of 2021.
PSU’s chief of campus police, Willie Halliburton, spoke about the decision in a YouTube video posted Monday. He said they will still have unarmed patrols. Public safety officers will continue to respond to some calls “in an unarmed manner,” but only when it is safe, leaving that call up to “the officer’s discretion.”
“Recently, our officers have encountered individuals on campus with weapons. This has made me make the hard decision to have more armed patrols on campus,” Halliburton said.
PSU President Stephen Percy sent out a letter about the decision, saying the school and its public safety officers are “committed to pursuing innovative, trauma-informed approaches to handling safety and security on campus.” You can read the full letter below.
The call to disarm campus officers at PSU has been ongoing for years, with a renewed effort from students and community members after Jason Washington was shot and killed by campus police in June of 2018.
Halliburton was behind the decision to start unarmed patrols, saying the move was an important step in building a new approach to campus safety.
Halliburton said campus police created several policies on safely patrolling PSU’s grounds. Officers still carry stun guns.
According to Halliburton, PSU’s campus police now has nine armed patrol officers, seven public safety officers, and eight campus ambassadors.
PSU campus security began carrying weapons in July 2015. Students pushed against the new policy and protested the decision.
KATU spoke with some students on campus Tuesday about the change.
Some students expressed concerns.
“I was pretty surprised,” said Elina Martinez, a PSU student. “I definitely do think that there’s a lot of negatives that go into play in that, just because of a lot of the violence that’s been going on here in Portland specifically, especially for a lot of the minority groups students [it] could feel very invasive.”
Others said it could be a good idea with the number of school shootings we’ve seen this year.
“Personally, I’m fine with it, considering that the U.S. has so many mass shootings, and it happens anywhere at any time, especially there’s been too many that’s happened on campuses,” said Tim Mclean, a PSU student.