Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

UI Police Department not getting older, just better

Officers also will receive a centennial badge that they’ll wear on uniforms through next year, and then retire as a keepsake.

Officers also will receive a centennial badge that they’ll wear on uniforms through next year, and then retire as a keepsake.

The history of the UI Police Department is in fact two distinct stories covering more than 100 years.

An early photo shows a police dispatcher.

An early photo shows a police dispatcher.

The first story starts in 1895 – less than 30 years after the university was chartered – when UI President Andrew Draper decided campus crime had spiraled out of control.

“Lawlessness is prevalent about university property to a degree which I never saw before, elsewhere, about public property,” he was quoted as telling the UI Board of Trustees just prior to the turn of the century. “The people of the vicinage maraude (sic) upon our grounds and are impertinent when their depredations are resisted.”

Draper’s solution was to have the janitors of campus buildings take on “night watchmen” duties, a decision that eventually would lead to the second part of the story – the formation of a modern-day, professionally staffed police department.

“It’s been really interesting to find out how much has changed and how much is the same,” said Christopher Hawk, an officer for 15 years. He is researching the department’s history in anticipation of this year’s anniversary.

“It puts today into context,” he said.

The UI Police Department has over the years changed with the times, as evidenced in the undated photo, featuring Lloyd Harry showing off a new squad car in front of a much-newer Assembly Hall.

The UI Police Department has over the years changed with the times, as evidenced in the undated photo, featuring Lloyd Harry showing off a new squad car in front of a much-newer Assembly Hall.

Hawk was part of the committee that planned the anniversary celebration last month at the Public Safety Building. He researched the department’s history through various sources, from university archives to a master’s thesis written by Kris Fitzpatrick, a former UI police chief and retired head of the Police Training Institute.

“The anniversary kind of snuck up on us,” he said. “We talked about what we wanted to do, and one of those things was to tell the story of how the department came about.”

Officers also will receive a centennial badge that they’ll wear on uniforms through next year, and then retire as a keepsake.

The officer who started it all: Pearl "Pete" Adams, who was hired in 1899 to patrol the growing campus. Known affectionately as "Officer Pete" by today's officers, Adams was the first UI police officer hired by the university. He was known for his diligence in keeping people off the grass and for arresting campus smokers.

The officer who started it all: Pearl “Pete” Adams, who was hired in 1899 to patrol the growing campus. Known affectionately as “Officer Pete” by today’s officers, Adams was the first UI police officer hired by the university. He was known for his diligence in keeping people off the grass and for arresting campus smokers.

Deputy Chief Jeff Christensen said the department takes pride in its history because it illustrates the paving of the winding path it has taken toward excellence.

“History is important to us to recognize and learn where we have come from,” he said. “It’s a way to honor those who have previously undertaken the challenging mission of serving and protecting our university during many campus historical points.”

1911 is considered the official birth-year of the police department, when UI trustees voted to “employ two deputy sheriffs for continuous police duty, day and night, on and about the university campus.”

Campus officers were limited in their duties, which mostly encompassed minor infractions and campus property protection – but they also took those duties seriously.

Leading the way was Urbana’s Pearl “Pete” Adams – affectionately called “Officer Pete” by modern-day officers – who started as a “special” police officer in 1899 and eventually became chief after the department’s formation.

In this 1950 photo, found in the university's archives, UI Police officers show off a new motorcycle unit - though by the 1960s the department still had just three squad cars. That all started to change with increased crime and the social protests of the era - as well as a new state law granting university police the same powers as other police units in Illinois. Before long the department began hiring more officers, purchasing new crime-fighting equipment and offering specialized police training.

In this 1950 photo, found in the university’s archives, UI Police officers show off a new motorcycle unit – though by the 1960s the department still had just three squad cars. That all started to change with increased crime and the social protests of the era – as well as a new state law granting university police the same powers as other police units in Illinois. Before long the department began hiring more officers, purchasing new crime-fighting equipment and offering specialized police training.

“There is quite a bit of documentation on him even though he predated the department by a few years,” Hawk said. “He spent a good part of his day keeping people from walking on the grass and catching students smoking on campus. A lot of their focus back then was just rattling door handles and fire and flood watch.”

One article Hawk found, written in 1926, describes the day Adams “detained 21 students and staff for smoking.” (Students breaking the rules were taken to the Dean of Men’s Office, though the punishment for staff members wasn’t clear).

According to the historical documents gathered by Hawk, theft and the specifically undefined crime of “vice” continued to be of concern to UI trustees through the 1960s – though some of the jurisdictional issues were becoming trickier with the growth of the university and its twin-city neighbors.

A squad car from the 1970s with Assembly Hall in the background.

A squad car from the 1970s with Assembly Hall in the background.

Some of those issues were solved through a state statute enacted in 1964 giving campus police officers the same powers and duties – “to make arrest on view or warrants of violations” – as other police units.

By 1970 the university had begun merging the police department and Security Office, where formal investigations had up to that point been conducted.

“That’s when the department became a full-service organization,” Hawk said.

Former UI police officer Bruce Dixon was there to witness the turning of the department’s second historical chapter.

Hired out of the Air Force in 1968, Dixon said there was a lot of resistance from a group of officers who were originally hired as glorified night watchmen – then asked to become policemen.

“We only had three patrol cars back then, so there were still a lot of walking zones,” he recalled of his first years with the department. “We walked around a lot and checked the buildings. We had big key chains we carried around and on Sundays we actually had to lock all of the buildings up. We didn’t have radios so we had to call and check in every half-hour.”

Dixon said he already was considering changing jobs because he was dissatisfied with the light duties, but then the departmental change started occurring.

“I was an Air Force policeman for more than seven years and when I was young I always wanted to be a cop,” he said. “I felt like a security guard, not a police officer.”

He said the change in state statute and growing social unrest of the 1960s were major factors leading to a more professional police department. He said one of the protests in 1969 led to the takeover of the Electrical Engineering Building and the presence of the National Guard to restore peace.

“It was a little nerve-wracking because it happened right after Kent State,” he said, referring to the incident at the Ohio university where student protesters were shot and killed. “We had to take back the building.”

But the incident was the turning point for some unenthusiastic officers, who were just fine rattling doorknobs.

“After the riots, we lost a lot of officers,” he said. “They figured that was the future and they didn’t want to go through that again. To go from stopping a panty raid to having people throwing rocks at you was a big change.

“And there were a lot of changes about then; the training was improving, they were hiring a lot of officers and we were getting more squad cars. It changed tremendously in just my first 10 years.”

Dixon ended up taking on additional, dangerous duties, signing up with the bomb squad and serving there for the next 22 years until his retirement in 1999.

“It took a lot of years and a lot of work, but we got there,” he said of the department’s progression.

Hawk said today’s department has come full circle in many ways.

Although officers have access to better training and tools and are even members of the regional emergency response team, he said leaders still understand the value of boots on the street. The department currently encourages officers to get out of their vehicles and make contact with the public, which leads to good relationships that translate into better reporting of crimes.

“We’ve involved at every level of law enforcement now, but I still have a lot of focus on getting out and getting in the buildings,” he said. “There are a lot of benefits to being out there and about.”

Officer Pete likely would agree.

UI Police Department seeks accreditation

By Mike Helenthal

Assistant Editor

After a full century of existence, the UI Police Department is older and wiser – but not ready to settle down anytime soon.

Department leaders are working to finalize state accreditation requirements by the end of the year in hopes of full certification in 2012.

“It’s something we’ve been working on for the past year and a half,” said Lt. Tony Brown, who has led the department’s process. “Our goal right now is to finalize everything on our end and then have them come in and evaluate us.”

Brown said the department has reviewed all of its policies, changing many of them to meet state and national standards and adding new ones where needed. The next step is to document the changes in “proof” documents that will be provided to the Illinois Law Enforcement Accreditation Program.

“There’s a lot more that goes into this than you might think,” Brown said. “I worked on it full-time for a year and we’re still trying to wrap it up.”

There are more than 170 ILEAP standards that must be upheld, each carrying a sub-list of standards to be met.

Brown said the accreditation process was initiated for a number of reasons, one of them being that “it shows a certain level of professionalism.”

But adapting to wider-ranging specifications has benefits, including added protection against lawsuits.

“There is an expectation of a reduced number of lawsuits because you’ve already proven you’re complying with state and national standards,” he said.

Once the department is accredited it must submit annual reports to remain compliant. ILEAP officials also make regular visits every few years to ensure compliance and to keep police departments updated on changes in the law.

Brown said the review of departmental policy hasn’t led to a major overhaul, but has pointed out areas of improvement.

“There are things that we are already doing or have been doing automatically for years,” Brown said, “but we didn’t necessarily have a policy written for it. We had to ask, ‘Do we have all the specifics outlined for this?’ “

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