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Officers walking the talk

Vicki Klomparens gets plenty of exercise on the job.

She and other campus public safety officers now cover their beats mostly by foot, instead of cruising the campus within the confines of patrol cars.

"As it is now, I walk quite a bit of the time I'm on duty in my area," said Klomparens, who covers the northwest part of campus.

More time walking the beat -- and getting to know people along the way -- is a major part of community policing, a philosophy public safety put into practice last July at the direction of Chief Derek Poarch.

The goal of community policing is to bring greater police visibility, closer partnerships among department employees and others on campus, and improved problem-solving and communication.

Judging from Klomparens, it's working.

Whereas she used to spend about two thirds of her time in a patrol car, she now is on foot more than half the time. That means meeting students and employees face-to-face rather than seeing them through a windshield.

"They'll approach you and tell you things they might not tell you if they just saw you driving by in a patrol car," she said.

Along with spending more time on their feet, officers now cover the same ground with their feet. To lay the groundwork for community policing, public safety's officers were reorganized into four squads of up to eight members each.

Each squad is responsible for all public safety issues around-the-clock in one of four areas. Sub-stations for these areas are in Kenan Field House, Abernethy Annex, Chase Hall and Student Stores. Liaison officers also are assigned to each residence hall.

Before, two squads of officers covered the entire campus with each putting in daily 12-hour shifts. But because they now are responsible for areas instead of blocks of time, they see the same faces and tread the same territory.

"The old way, it was harder to get to know people who took classes or lived or worked in a particular area," said Klomparens, whose been a public safety officer for six years.

But now there's a face behind the badge.

"We weren't as approachable before as we are now," Klomparens said. "At one time, I would have walked across this campus and [students] would have said, `Oh, no,' but now I think they see me as a person."

And that familiarity helps Klomparens perform her job.

"Now I interact with the students, faculty and staff. It's a whole lot easier to recognize potential problems in your area because you spend so much time in your area."

For instance, one time walking her area Klomparens found an unlocked door at Phillips Hall -- housekeepers had left it unlocked so they could get to a room inside where keys to other buildings are kept.

Because open access to these keys posed a security risk, Klomparens saw to it that the door remained locked when appropriate. And to make sure housekeepers still can get the keys they need, someone now is available to let them in.

"That's the sort of thing I may not have discovered under the old system," Klomparens said.

"We're able to recognize these potential problems because we're out there talking to our employees and our students and we're seeing it with our own eyes."

That happened when Klomparens -- the liaison officer for Spencer Residence Hall -- noticed that foliage in the Coker Arboretum had obscured some of the lighting around Spencer, putting at risk female students walking to the hall after dark.

Klomparens called Annie Presler, a curator at the North Carolina Botanical Garden who works in the arboretum. Their conversation led to botanical garden staff pruning the foliage in a way that would remove the hazard but preserve the arboretum's botanical integrity.

And Electrical Distribution personnel were brought in to take a look at the problem, and they installed another light in the area. Presler and Klomparens also got the ball rolling to have "Closed from dusk to dawn" signs erected in the arboretum to discourage students living in Spencer from taking this route to their rooms when daylight wanes.

Presler said she welcomes the open communication lines between public safety and the rest of campus.

"It's very encouraging to work with other departments and interact in a positive way that will benefit the entire campus community, rather than being so departmentalized," Presler said.

Getting a cross-section of Carolina employees to solve problems is a key benefit of community policing, said Deputy Public Safety Director Jeff McCracken, who's helped Poarch implement the effort.

"The partnerships with the different organizations have improved, and those partnerships you develop within the community, in the end, are the only way you can successfully address crime and the fear of crime in that community," McCracken said.

And those partnerships start with officers like Klomparens.

"I think you can enforce the law and be approachable," she said. "That's what community policing is all about."

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