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News

No sunny beaches for UHPD

Officers' schedules remain the same despite summer break

by JOANNA GARCIA
THE DAILY COUGAR

The UH Police Department is not on summer vacation.

About 46 police officers will be on duty at different times of the day during the summer semester.

"We offer all of our services; our escort service continues throughout the summer," Capt. Brad Wigtil said. "We don't cut any programs because it's the summer; we maintain all our programs year-round."

Not only do they not cut any services, but they also do not cut any police officer positions. 

"We have a certain amount of officers on day shift, afternoon shift and midnight shift, and that staffing doesn't change in the summer; it's year-round," Wigtil said.

The officers have "shift day" every six months. The shift that the officer picks is what he or she will work for the following six months.

"We look at our activity level, not just criminal but calls for our services, and we staff based on those needs," Wigtil said.

Besides patrolling and taking care of business around campus, the officers continue to learn and train while on duty, Wigtil said.

"One of the things that we do over the summer is training our officers. We try to find those times when the demand for our services are lacking like Christmas break, Spring Break and the three-week gap between May graduation and the first summer session, and we'll schedule state-mandated training and other training that is not mandated so we can enhance the proficiency of our officers," Wigtil said.

Wigtil urges students to check out the UHPD Web site and the different services the department has to offer.

"We have a Red class that is a personal safety course," Wigtil said.

Just in case there is not a police officer around does not mean there is not someone on the look out, Wigtil said.

"We have a fantastic security officer program, where some of the colleges or residential life areas on campus hire security officers to work their facilities, such as the Law Center, M.D. Anderson Memorial Library, Bayou Oaks, the Moody Towers and at our off-campus locations like the Sugarland campus and Cinco Ranch facilities," Wigtil said.

These security officers carry police radios so they can quickly communicate with the campus police, Wigtil said.

A new anti-theft technology the campus police department is offering is engraving the driver license numbers on personal technological equipment, such as computers, for no charge. In case the valuables are stolen and pawned or are found by other police officers, they can locate the owner.

"There is a whole statewide, federal computer system that we are a part of that we can enter your stolen property into, and if it is recovered by another police agency, they will run it and based on the TDL they will notify us," Wigtil said. "This is all new technology."

If something is stolen, students can utilize the tele-service reporting mechanism on the Web site instead of waiting for an officer to file a report. Check out the UH campus police Web site at www.uh.edu/police.

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