FIU Student Media sat with Chief Alexander Casas to help explain how the FIU Police Department works.
At BBC, Chief Casas explains that it is a division of petrol, which is also known as a community oriented policing squad, that designates officers from the FIU Police Department to the BBC area.
“[It] is a group of officers that request an interview for that position and they are permanently assigned thater,” said Casas.
Casas explains that they typically have a minimum of two officers assigned to the campus per shift.
“The reason why we have that approach for that campus is because it kind of lends itself for that neighborhood policing type,” said Casas. “There are less calls for service because there are less people there.”
This system is in place for the officers to get to know the community a little better and to interact better with the faculty, the staff and students.
“[BBC] also has, or part of their cop squad, a dog,” said Casas. “We just added a dog this semester. We have a dog dedicated to BBC.”
The dog designated for the BBC area has varied shifts, and Casa hopes to increase the size of the K-9 squad in the near future. He also hopes to obtain a few more useful items for the police patrol.
“It’s one dog so shifts vary, it’s not 24/7 I wish it could be. If I had a wish list I’d have a few more pedestrians safety, those motorcycles are great,” said Casas. “When there is fall traffic they have been outstanding to get to spots where we have to cross pedestrians and I would love to have a few more dogs.”
At BBC, Peter Canino is the Lieutenant for Patrol Services Division supervises the BBC, BBC housing area, and other satellites.
“Anything community related, he handles that, and he’s got 8 or 9 officers that are assigned,” said Casas. “Two are at housing and two are at [MMC] to do shifts at BBC.”
If there is ever a day where an officer is in training, they have court, it’s a day off, or if it it simply means they cannot attend, FIUPD sends one of the officers from MMC to BBC.
“It rotates a little bit, that way we always have the right amount of staffing, and we also have mutual aid agreements with the local jurisdictions,” said Casas. “So anytime we need help, they are there to provide us with assistance.”
Casas explains that this is in order to increase police presence, without having the actual resources tied to you.
“Whenever we need something we ask for help and they come out,” said Casas.
If there is a student driven event or a BBC driven event, the community policing officers work it first.
“If there is an event going on at BBC and it’s got a nexus to BBC where it’s student driven, the officers would work it first,” said Casas. “If they can’t staff it, then we would bring guys from MMC, and if we still can’t staff it we would bring guys from outside agencies like we do at our football game commencements.”
According to Casas, policing on campus is changing.
“Virginia Tech was a game changer, and every year it becomes more and more of a game changer, said Casas. “Things that we are faced with, that we have to address as a University police department are very different from the things that we use to address 20 years ago.”
He explains that the university went from a security force with a purpose of keeping the campus safe, to an entity that is actively involved in the day to day operations of the University that entails student safety, event management, and everything else that a police department does, however on a different scale.
“But we are doing good compared to most Universities actually,” said Casas. “We are in really good shape.”
“I think we have a very good relationship with our FIU community. We are very accessible, we are very open. When we fall short of the standard of service we like to provide, we take that very serious and we work hard to improve that,” said Casas. “If it’s a complaint, we investigate it. If somebody did something wrong we hold them accountable. If it’s something that we have to fix with training because it was an honest mistake, we do it. We drive that process and that is a commitment that I will always make.”
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