On one side are students who feel they are being unfairly attacked by the University Police Department. On the other side is a police force that is trying to prevent tragedies like the student deaths that have hit Ball State this school year.
Both agree UPD must protect students. They disagree, however, on how strongly the rules should be enforced.
The Students Speak survey of 151 Ball State students reports that 53 percent of students feel UPD doesn't adequately protect them. Because students say they are being targeted by local police, they have developed a level of mistrust of university officers. Students want UPD to protect them but don't want the rules enforced on them.
Student mistrust puts the police in a bind because UPD relies on the cooperation of the public to protect them. Animosity toward officers is also dangerous because it has the potential to fester and develop into violent resistance.
Gene Burton, chief of University Police, said student mistrust puts university officers in a tough position. The level of mistrust is always going to be higher after controversial interactions between police and students, but the enmity still makes it hard for the department to govern, he said.
"As an administrator, it's a point of concern for me," Burton said. "What do I do for that 50 percent, because I have to protect them too?"
Criminal justice professor Angela Nickoli said students have a double standard when it comes to law enforcement. They want to be protected but not regulated, which leads to animosity toward the police.
"(Students) want effective law enforcement, but they don't want the rules enforced on them," Nickoli said. "That makes it difficult for officers to do their job effectively. You can't have it both ways."
Burton said there haven't been any confrontations between officers and angry students, but he realizes a larger than normal group of students don't like UPD right now. Conflict between police and students, he said, makes it hard for officers to protect the campus because police rely on cooperation from the public to do their jobs well.
"When enforcing the law, we have an obligation as keepers of the peace, so we're going to have disagreements," Burton said. "We count on the support of the public quite a bit with things like reporting crimes and giving us tips on crimes. When there's a large element that doesn't trust us, it makes it much more difficult. We're not as effective as we could be."
Sophomore Chad Tipmore, 20, was one of 87 people cited for minor consumption when the Muncie Police Department, with UPD's assistance, busted a Lambda Chi Alpha party April 4. Tipmore said he trusts the police because he is forced to turn to them for protection, but he doesn't like the recent "Police Yourself" campaign or the MPD crackdown.
"The police are taking the murder of two students out on us," Tipmore said. "They're being too harsh when those incidents were done by non-students."
Junior Chris DellaRocco, 21, said the hatred toward police comes from students' conception that UPD is unnecessarily targeting students who drink.
"I know they're just doing their jobs, but they need to lighten up," DellaRocco said. "There are people who think it's safer to drive home from the bars because they're scared they'll get arrested for public intoxication if they walk home. That's ridiculous."
Whatever the reason, Nickoli said public mistrust of the police tends to be a serious issue that can continue to escalate and eventually boil over. Though it was a much more extreme situation, Nickoli said, the 1992 Los Angeles riots resulted from hostility toward the police department. The animosity has to be addressed by both officers and students, Nickoli said.
UPD realizes student mistrust can quickly snowball into a larger, more violent problem, Burton said. To avoid confrontations, or letting negative students affect their jobs, Burton said, he encourages his officers to keep working in students' best interests. He explains to his younger officers that the hostile campus atmosphere eventually will die down.
Burton said UPD is attempting to reach out more to the public to find out how it can better help citizens. He is trying to work more closely with the Student Government Association and the Residence Hall Association to find out what students want, he said.
Because of the events involving UPD and students this year, Burton said he expects relations between the two parties to be frayed. With an increased effort to educate the public on UPD programs, Burton said he hopes students will eventually come to rely on police again.
"We don't expect trust to be developed overnight," Burton said. "There'll always be a certain percentage that we'll never win back.
"We just have to do the job the way it's supposed to be done and provide services to all the university community. Trust is earned, so that's what we're going to do."
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