Houston Community College’s police force is changing how they operate. By the end of this semester, officers will be rotating from campus to campus and working in overlapping shifts.
Today, the HCC police force is broken up into five commands: Central, Northeast, Northwest, Southwest, and Coleman and Southeast under the same command.
Officers are assigned to a single commands such as the group that covers the Southeast campus off I-45, Fraga and Coleman. “They operate inside whatever that geography is,” noted HCC Police Chief Greg Cunningham, “very rarely do we take you out of Southeast and move you to Southwest...migrating people across these colleges is not real easy to do.”
Officers are currently working five days a week in eight …show more content…
We just couldn’t afford to do that,” said Cunningham, “I am going to have to pull assets from my other colleges...If they’ve never been there before, if they’ve never trained in that building, if they don’t know that building—how effective are they going to be when they get there?”
Cunninghams says that he “sees this gap” in the way emergency situations are handled today and how they need to be handled. He said that “I’m closing that gap” by consolidating the police force.
The HCC Board of Trustees recently authorized the college 's police department to have up to 92 police officers, currently there are 72. Also, 38 security officers are authorized, right now there are 28. They are steadily hiring more officers, job postings are on HCCSJOBS.com. HCC currently has a fleet of about 25 police cars with 10 more on order. With every yearly budget, cars and added and retired.
HCC Southwest Student Government President Charles Tolden has voiced concerns about consolidation, “It’s too many uncertainties for me as a student representative to be OK with going forth with such a dramatic change in the security structure of …show more content…
He believes that community policing is “about bringing you guys—my community—to the table and having you weigh in. Community policing is about communication,” and, “bringing the members of the community together.”
Cunningham says that he and other officers will continue to meet with community members, attend student government meetings and host safety workshops.
Tolden still has questions about the purpose of consolidation and concerns about campus nighttime safety. Cunningham and HCC Police Lieutenant John Boxie spoke to student government leaders at the United Student Council meeting on Jan. 15. Tolden said that before that meeting, “As United Student Council members, we really didn’t know that this was going on.”
Cunningham and his commanding officers started planning consolidation a year and a half ago, “we’ve looked at this too well for this to not work well.”
“If it turns out being a train wreck,” Cunningham said that he will be the first to admit, “we made a mistake...if we’re wrong, we’ll
Today, the HCC police force is broken up into five commands: Central, Northeast, Northwest, Southwest, and Coleman and Southeast under the same command.
Officers are assigned to a single commands such as the group that covers the Southeast campus off I-45, Fraga and Coleman. “They operate inside whatever that geography is,” noted HCC Police Chief Greg Cunningham, “very rarely do we take you out of Southeast and move you to Southwest...migrating people across these colleges is not real easy to do.”
Officers are currently working five days a week in eight …show more content…
We just couldn’t afford to do that,” said Cunningham, “I am going to have to pull assets from my other colleges...If they’ve never been there before, if they’ve never trained in that building, if they don’t know that building—how effective are they going to be when they get there?”
Cunninghams says that he “sees this gap” in the way emergency situations are handled today and how they need to be handled. He said that “I’m closing that gap” by consolidating the police force.
The HCC Board of Trustees recently authorized the college 's police department to have up to 92 police officers, currently there are 72. Also, 38 security officers are authorized, right now there are 28. They are steadily hiring more officers, job postings are on HCCSJOBS.com. HCC currently has a fleet of about 25 police cars with 10 more on order. With every yearly budget, cars and added and retired.
HCC Southwest Student Government President Charles Tolden has voiced concerns about consolidation, “It’s too many uncertainties for me as a student representative to be OK with going forth with such a dramatic change in the security structure of …show more content…
He believes that community policing is “about bringing you guys—my community—to the table and having you weigh in. Community policing is about communication,” and, “bringing the members of the community together.”
Cunningham says that he and other officers will continue to meet with community members, attend student government meetings and host safety workshops.
Tolden still has questions about the purpose of consolidation and concerns about campus nighttime safety. Cunningham and HCC Police Lieutenant John Boxie spoke to student government leaders at the United Student Council meeting on Jan. 15. Tolden said that before that meeting, “As United Student Council members, we really didn’t know that this was going on.”
Cunningham and his commanding officers started planning consolidation a year and a half ago, “we’ve looked at this too well for this to not work well.”
“If it turns out being a train wreck,” Cunningham said that he will be the first to admit, “we made a mistake...if we’re wrong, we’ll