Editorial “Arming F&M’s campus police” observes:
Typically, campus police would contact local police when an incident occurs and await their arrival, monitoring the incident from a safe distance.
“Proponents say arming F&M’s sworn officers would mean a quicker response time to an incident such as a mass shooting.”
“As to F&M being a safe campus, that’s true. However, given what’s happened on campuses across the country in the past decade, F&M should count itself lucky, too.
It concludes: “F&M should join Millersville University, which has had armed sworn officers since 1987, and take the necessary step that helps keep the campus safe.”
WATCHDOG: F & M is situated in the City of Lancaster, in close proximity to the Manheim Township . Unlike Millersvile University, it is not in a small town largely surrounded with a rural population. The difference is that formidable police response, perhaps three or four patrol cars, can arrive on five minutes summons.
Then we ask whether Dan Porterfield, in his two years as president of F & M, has been able to reform the ‘cowboy’ campus police force that acted more like thugs than police officers under the lamentable administration of former president John Fry from 2002 to 2010.
(In our opinion, Fry not only was a blight on the college, but also General Hospital and the Convention Center Authority on whose boards he served. The local establishment admired and sought to emulate his brutish approaches to community issues. He had a profound negative impact on traditional Lancaster civility and fair play.)
The publisher and editor of a local news weekly, Ron Harper and Chris Hart-Nibrigg, who were moving a newspaper distribution box from the right-of-way in front of Fry’s residence to the other side of Marietta Pike, were wrongly accused of trespassing and brutally attacked by F & M security.
Harper was mugged by F & M security forces without provocation. See for yourself.
Had F & M Security guns, would they have shot him?
Incidentally, John Fry witnessed the outrageous behavior from his front lawn.
Apart from the Harper incident, we don’t think the F & M security forces need to be armed given the proximity of the city and township police.
We certainly would want to be convinced that the F & M security force had been totally revamped, re-trained and better led before permitting them even to own a BB gun.
I wonder how F & M’s insurance company feels about armed guards ( especially after one of their rent-a-cops shot himself a couple of years ago and blamed it on an attacker ). Personally I don’t see why tear gas and/or tasers would not suffice.
As for Fry’s effect on F & M and the neighborhood, the students might not have a bad element to fear had Fry listened to student landlords before removing them in one swoop. The landlords advised that a phased removal would allow the neighborhood to get good tenants over time, but that suggestion fell on deaf ears. As a result there is some evidence that bad characters moved in when landlords were faced with mass vacancies.
Arm F&M with suitable weapons…..paint ball guns.