Campus cops face test of strength

Tuesday, Nov. 16, 1999 | 11:13 a.m.

The dismissal of UNLV Police Chief David Hollenbeck on Monday is the latest setback for the 20-officer department that this fall has been buffeted by criticism and has been suffering a morale problem as a result.

Vice President of Student Services Robert Ackerman announced Monday during a meeting of the new UNLV Public Safety Advisory Board that Hollenbeck would be reassigned and a search begun for a new chief.

Day watch commander Sgt. Don Drake will serve as acting police chief until that selection is made.

Hollenbeck said he was taken by surprise when, in a two-minute meeting with Ackerman on Monday, he was told that he was being relieved of his duties and reassigned.

"Obviously I'm not happy about it," Hollenbeck said this morning. "I had a meeting with the administration Friday and was told that my job was not being threatened, then Monday morning Ackerman is telling me I had been reassigned. There is nothing in writing at this point."

Hollenbeck said no reason was given for his ouster, but it comes after months of student protests and complaints that allege abuse by campus police officers.

Drake was enjoying a day off when he received a call from Ackerman about noon Monday asking him to serve as interim police chief until another one could be hired to replace Hollenbeck.

"I was in total shock," Drake said. He said he will be willing to do whatever is necessary to keep the department afloat, but he doesn't understand what is happening.

The firestorm began in September, when Community College of Southern Nevada student Denise Jaramillo, a reporter for her school newspaper, claimed she was abused and threatened during a Hootie and the Blowfish concert Sept. 23.

Jaramillo told local newspapers and TV news shows that she took pictures backstage during the concert and for that was accosted and handcuffed by police.

Her complaint opened a floodgate of others, some dating back years.

One in 1997 has resulted in a federal lawsuit. After hosting a Conscious Comedy Concert at Artemus Ham Concert Hall on Nov. 2, 1997, promoter Sir Frank Cooper complained that all of the black people who attended were frisked by police while white people at a play in the Judy Bayley Theatre next door were not touched.

The lawsuit by him and his wife, Anita Cooper, is expected to become the basis for a class-action lawsuit for some 75 people who have alleged abuse by campus police.

Another lawsuit was filed Monday in District Court by Leonard Weinstock alleging that campus police slammed his head into the pavement outside the Thomas & Mack Center after a Spice Girls concert in August 1998 and broke his neck.

Nevada American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Gary Peck said such complaints point to a deeper problem, but according to Drake, the allegations unfairly target the campus police department and ignore a decade of progress the force has made.

"The problems plaguing the campus police are much broader than Chief Hollenbeck," Peck said. "The administration is now in a position to determine the depth to which the chief was involved in the problems, and the need for farther-reaching reform should be obvious to everyone.

Drake said the claims are misleading.

"One of the things we've always believed in the department is that no one is going to stand for an officer who is abusive," Drake said this morning. "We've gotten rid of them in the past."

In the case of the student journalist, "Our officers were very upset about that allegation," Drake explained last week. "One of our officers actually rescued her from the band's security. It was the band security harassing her, not us. She lumped all of the officers, security and campus police, together in her complaint."

A similar mistake in the affiliation of officers occurred at the Nov. 2, 1997, concert, Hollenbeck said last week. The man in charge of the concert hall, now deceased, hired a private security firm, and the security officers were responsible for whatever may have happened there, not campus police.

"We weren't even there," he said.

He noted that the concert taking place next door to Cooper's event did not hire a private security firm.

That event changed the way security is arranged for UNLV events, Hollenbeck said. Now all security goes through his department.

That's only one of many changes the university police force has undergone under Hollenbeck's leadership. In the 12 years he's been at the helm, the department has grown, becoming more professional and able to serve the needs of students, he pointed out last week, before the decision was made to reassign him.

When Hollenbeck came to UNLV from Ohio State University in 1987 the campus police had 12 employees, eight of them officers, for a student population of about 12,000, he said.

Today the department, which was created in 1972, has 105 employees. In addition to its 20 officers, the force has seven dispatchers, 36 reserve officers and dispatchers and more than 40 parking employees, many of them part time. They serve a student population of more than 20,000.

"My mandate when I began here was to upgrade and improve the department," Hollenbeck said.

When Hollenbeck arrived the department had no communication system, no dispatchers, he said. If officers needed backup, they had to use a pay phone to call the Metro Police Department.

There were 30 call boxes around campus to phone the campus police department. "But there wasn't anyone to answer the calls," he said.

Today in addition to dispatchers the department has a sophisticated radio communication system and the latest in computers. Officers now carry weapons and are able to back up each other.

Still, Hollenbeck said, he has trained his officers to be service-oriented. "We are here to serve and to protect."

That emphasis shows in the escorts officers provide for students late at night after the shuttles stop running, or for students who want to go where shuttles don't go.

The officers identify strongly with the students -- three-fourths of the 105 employees are students, making the department one of the largest student employers on campus. Of the 20 full-time officers, seven are either taking courses or are UNLV graduates.

One of their main responsibilities is to provide security at events -- and while that is the source of many of the allegations, Hollenbeck said the force's track record is good.

Last year there were more than 200 major events on the campus, including concerts, boxing matches and rodeos as well as the university's sporting events.

Hollenbeck said more than 1 million people attended events at UNLV last year with very few complaints.

"Most of the complaints are against auxiliary officers or private security," Hollenbeck said.

It can be dangerous work. Many of UNLV's officers have suffered severe injuries in the line of duty, Hollenbeck said.

"We had 15 officers battered last year at special events," he said.

One officer received a broken neck, another a broken jaw and another a dislocated knee.

One was almost run over by a drunk who had been ousted from an event.

"Anytime you put on a badge and a gun, you become a target," Hollenbeck noted.

But even with the danger, special events are important to the income of a campus police officer.

"They can pick up 400 to 500 hours of overtime a year," Hollenbeck said.

That may be the primary incentive to attract officers to the department, since, according to Hollenbeck, his men are among the lowest paid police in the valley.

Starting pay for a campus officer is $29,000 per year. Top pay is $44,000.

Candidates attend the same police academy attended by officers from Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City police departments -- all of which have higher starting salaries than the UNLV police department. They come out of the academy as fully trained police officers, not glorified security guards.

The training and professionalism have paid off, Hollenbeck said. The UNLV campus is one of the safest jurisdictions in the valley.

"Last year there were 11 homicides within walking distance of the campus, but none here," Hollenbeck said.

There also were more than 30 reported rapes just off campus, but only three on campus -- and the suspects were known to the victims, he said.

His officers responded to more than 13,000 incident calls last year, generally the same types of calls Metro officers receive, and made more than 1,000 arrests.

Given that progress, Hollenbeck said this morning, he may have gotten caught in the middle of a political battlefield.

"From my perspective, I sort of feel like a fall guy," he said.

Ron Cuzze, an officer with the department and president of the State Peace Officers Counsel, said this morning part of the problem is that Ackerman is in charge of student affairs as well as police, and he tends to lean toward students.

"There is a conflict of interest there," he said.

He said police unions are pushing to have campus police under the authority of the Department of Public Safety, not the schools.

Drake said news of Hollenbeck's reassignment has further deteriorated the morale of the department.

"I thought it was low before, but it's in the garbage now," he said.

Officers, Hollenbeck said, "are sorry it was so one-sided. Clearly there were other sides to the story."

"Officers feel no one has made an effort to contact them for their point of view," Drake said. "They feel they've been lambasted pretty hard."

Hollenbeck said he has nothing against the students who have spoken out publicly against his department.

"It was a minority of the students, but speaking out is part of being a student. I have no problem with that," he said. "Police, in general, understand they are going to come under criticism. Sun reporter

Jace Radke contributed to this report.

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