UNLV officials hail new cop chief

Wednesday, May 17, 2000 | 11:29 a.m.

UNLV President Carol Harter and other university officials have told a legislative committee that a new public safety director should turn around the school's troubled campus police force.

Harter on Tuesday told the Legislative Committee on Education that Jose Elique, who will take the post on June 1, has "superb experience in urban campus safety -- he's a wonderful find."

Elique has served the last nine years as director of public safety for the City University of New York's 21 campuses. He also is retired from the New York Port Authority, where he worked 21 years.

He was one of 50 candidates from a nationwide search to fill the job that also carries the title of UNLV police chief. His contract, worth $95,000 a year, is for two years, Harter told the committee.

The legislative committee, made up of four senators and four assembly members, last October told the university to address numerous complaints of abuses by campus police officers, including racism and improper searches.

Outside the meeting, Elique, who is in town to search for a place to live, said a big step in improving the department will be "changing patrol methodology -- getting the officers out of the cars and among the students. In other words, community policing."

"We need to do a lot of meeting and greeting," Elique said, noting that the campus police will still fight crime. "We can do both jobs. Some officers view how good a job they are doing solely by the number of arrests they make. That will not be our only barometer."

Elique will be in charge of a 22-member force of state-certified officers in charge of the safety of 22,000 students. Elique, who built a 700-member CUNY force from scratch, said UNLV's 28-year-old police force is understaffed and he will need a commitment from the administration to increase the size of the department.

Assemblyman Wendell Williams, D-Las Vegas, the committee's chairman, said it appears that UNLV "is moving in a positive direction to address concerns. The one thing we want to ensure is that students feel safe at the university."

Gary Peck of the American Civil Liberties Union, a vocal critic of the campus police force, told the committee that the school's Public Safety Advisory Board has made recommendations for changes that could "result in meaningful accountability."

Outside the meeting, Peck said that Harter needs to consider adopting all of the recommendations, including establishment of an independent review board to look into alleged abuses by police and make recommendations to the president.

Also testifying before the committee were two members of the UNLV Public Safety Advisory Board: President Rick Bennett and student representative Joey Cohn.

"If all of the recommendations are implemented, problems will start to disappear," Cohn said, noting that the campus police force has a "long way to go" to win back student confidence.

Bennett said that while recommendations have been made, "it takes longer to change attitudes and improve trust."

Some members of the UNLV police force have said they want the force to resemble the Metro Police Department, and that they want to be overseen by state police regulators, not an independent nonpolice group or the university.

However, a string of problems over the last seven months will make that approach a hard sell.

In the wake of a round of student complaints last year, Chief David Hollenbeck was removed from his job and later reassigned to another UNLV management position.