Duke police officers may soon be faced with a heretofore unheard-of challenge: the off-campus beat.
A new bill, which passed the N.C. Senate and House of Representatives in mid-July and is now awaiting the approval of Gov. Mike Easley, would give the City of Durham the authority to grant extended jurisdiction to the Duke University Police Department, thereby allowing officers to branch out their regular patrols to the area surrounding East Campus.
"This proposal would enhance the partnership that the Durham Police Department has with Duke's public safety department," said Lt. Norman Blake, executive officer of the DPD. "Knowing that the area will also be patrolled by Duke officers will allow Durham officers in that area to rove and move over to other areas where we are having a higher incidence of crime."
John Burness, senior vice president for public affairs and government relations, noted that extended Duke jurisdiction off East Campus could mean more regular patrols in the neighborhoods where many members of the University community live. "With this proposal, we could have police cars going up and down those streets all the time, even on weekends," he said. "This should help increase safety in that area."
In addition, Burness said some of the higher-crime areas that could benefit from the proposal are neighborhoods in the Neighborhood Partnership Initiative, with which the University works extensively.
Burness stressed that there are no final plans just yet, but that jurisdiction for the DUPD could extend from Green Street to Main Street and from Ninth Street to Gregson or Watts streets.
It would cost an estimated $300,000 a year for the DUPD to take on responsibilities under the extended jurisdiction, Burness said. "We'd have to hire five or six more officers and fund the necessary support for them."
DUPD Chief Clarence Birkhead said extended jurisdiction should not require a great deal of extra training for Duke officers. "Duke police are full state-certified officers," he said. "The only shift will be in people's expectations of what Duke police can do."
Birkhead said he is looking forward to assisting Durham police, but that the DUPD is not seeking to encroach upon or usurp the DPD's jurisdiction. Any agreement between the two departments would not signify a complete transfer of responsibility for the area or areas in question, but would rather legalize regular Duke patrols in conjunction with DPD patrols.
"Duke police are not interested in taking over patrolling the Durham city, but we have a lot of students, faculty and staff living off East Campus," Birkhead said. "This proposal makes sense if we are able to assist the City of Durham in patrolling and responding to nuisance calls.... We still have to focus on Duke property and the Duke community, but at the same time be aware that we can help the city."
DUPD Maj. Robert Dean added that Duke patrols off East Campus could help lighten the DPD's load in responding to student and student-related calls.
"Now, when neighbors complain to police about loud parties or drunken students, it will be Duke police responding," Burness explained. "They will be responding exactly as if they were local police officers."
Burness said the University and the city have been in discussions for years about how Duke can provide indirect aid to Durham by taking on broader responsibilities like those currently in the works. However, discussions have been halted in the past by legal problems, to which officials are just now finding adequate solutions.
For the University, the main problem has centered on questions of insurance for Duke officers, Burness said.
"We said we'd be willing to do this extended patrolling, but we would have to have an assurance that Duke police officers would receive the same legal insurance that city police officers have," he said. "In order to get our police this legal protection in an ongoing fashion, the city had to submit a bill to the state legislature that would be unique to Duke and that would permit the city to contract with our officers to patrol regularly."
Burness said the bill that now awaits Easley's signature does just that and provides a basis for establishing a permanent contractual agreement as opposed to the current mutual aid agreement, under which the city can deputize Duke officers only for isolated events.
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