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USF Details Safety Push

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By Adam Emerson of The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 26, 2007

Updated: 10/26/2007 02:45 pm

TAMPA University of South Florida leaders are overhauling their campus safety efforts amid mounting criticism that they're failing to do enough to ensure students are safe.

The university has hired private security firm Allied Barton to enhance its thinning campus police force and help patrol residence halls and some campus events.

USF President Judy Genshaft also said she plans to hire a campus safety czar to oversee a new division encompassing police, parking enforcement and emergency response.

The changes come as a chorus of complaints about campus safety grows louder – from students to the university's own police officers.

Just a week ago, student government leaders staged a sit-in of about 70 students at the administration building to protest what they called lax security efforts. USF's police force has gotten smaller during the past several years, even though the university's enrollment has grown by thousands.

Contract negotiations between USF's police union and administration have grown terse in recent weeks. USF Police Chief Thomas Longo long has argued that he's losing young officers to better paying jobs at police departments throughout the Tampa Bay area.

University spokesman Ken Gullette said that the money paid to Allied Barton "will not in any way take one penny away from the police department."

Unarmed Allied Barton security guards will patrol campus spots and events. The company already provides security for schools such as the University of Central Florida, Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania, both in Philadelphia, and Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.

USF also will create a public safety division that will oversee police, parking and emergency needs such as those a hurricane can create.

Reporter Adam Emerson can be reached at (813) 259-8285 or aemerson@tampatrib.com.

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