Ball State police receive few complaints based on number of service calls

University police chief explains suspensions, complaints, mentality of his department

About once a month, somebody is upset enough about the campus police to file a formal complaint. Usually it's a claim that one of the cops was copping an attitude.

"That's probably the largest complaint we've had — ‘I don't like his attitude,' or something like that," said Gene Burton, director of public safety and chief of Ball State University Police Department.

A Daily News review of documents from the department shows UPD received 47 complaints in the past four years, most claiming rudeness and misconduct of its officers.

Burton likes to point out that it's a relatively small number of complaints, given that officers responded to more than 70,000 service calls in that time.

"As you can tell, it just doesn't happen that often," Burton said. "It's a very rare occasion. That's something we need to keep in mind."

The department says it investigates and responds to every complaint that is filed. And the official documents, obtained through the Indiana Access to Public Records Act, show that since 2007, nine officers have been suspended and three were terminated.

Suspensions dealt mainly with acting inappropriately off-duty, altering time cards and leaving a duty weapon unsecured where department personnel had access. Terminations were a result of improper behavior and poor performance during a probationary period.

These statistics were also mentioned in UPD's annual assessment report filed by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies Inc. This document was obtained through the police department and showed information for 2007-2009. There was one discrepancy between the data: CALEA reported 14 complaints in 2008, and information from the public records request showed 12 complaints.

CITIZEN COMPLAINTS

Formal complaints sometimes show officers were too harsh in the way they treated people. Other times, the officers are absolved from blame.

"Some of them, the officer did exactly what they were supposed to do," Burton said.

One case from last winter sticks out in Burton's mind. On Jan. 5, a man was giving his girlfriend a boost through her bathroom window, and the officer thought it was a burglary in progress.

The officer was patrolling the neighborhoods around campus to look for burglars.

"And yeah, seeing somebody crawling through the window was not what you normally see," Burton said.

When the officer saw what was happening, he pulled his gun, which is why the woman filed a complaint.

"An officer on a bike drew a gun on my boyfriend after seeing him walk around the house," the complainant wrote. "After giving me a boost through the bathroom window, I opened the door and saw [my boyfriend] complying with everything the officer said."

Burton said the officer acted in accordingly because he assumed that the potential burglar had a weapon.

He said he explained this to the couple in his formal response, but he's not sure if it really changed their minds.

He wrote: "... the officer used a level of force that was appropriate for the situation. Once presented with all the facts the officer was able to successfully de-escalate his use of force to an appropriate level. The officer violated no department or University policy during this incident."

Burton said several complaints are a result of the disconnect between how officers responded and how citizens expected them to.

Other examples of complaints filed against UPD came from a woman who reported a sexual assault in 2007 and ESPN employees who covered a football game on campus in 2009.

Mitch Isaacs, associate director of Student Life, assisted the woman who reported the assault, and he filed a complaint saying that the officer had been rude over the phone.

After a follow-up investigation, the officer was reprimanded for unprofessional language during a phone conversation with Isaacs.

In regard to the ESPN employees, the report showed "officers at the entrance/exit started yelling and cursing at them as they pulled over and stopped to ask where the entrance was."

This also required a follow-up investigation in which the employee was reprimanded for unprofessional behavior.

STAYING ACCOUNTABLE

Burton said he doesn't mind the tighter scrutiny for police officers. He says it's just part of the job.

"I think officers are held to a higher standard than other members in the community. And you know what? I'm OK with that," he said.

The nature of the job means officers have exclusive privileges, he said, like confiscating personal property and using force to the point of killing someone in the line of duty.

"By the nature of the job, we've been given a trust that nobody else has," he said. "I guess my opinion is if an officer doesn't like that, then maybe they better get in another line of work."

"They ought to know it coming in. It's not like it's a big secret."

SIDEBAR

Get to know the face of UPD

Police work isn't just a job for police chief Gene Burton. It's something he grew up with.

The 53-year-old grew up in Brook, Ind., a small town 20 minutes west of Rensselaer. His father was a justice of the peace, meaning he had a day job, but he also served as a local judge.

"I can remember having police officers come by the house all hours of the day and night, so I got to view them in a little different light than the average citizen did," Burton said.

Beyond that, Burton said things just seemed to fall into place.

He graduated from Ball State in 1980 and had planned to go to law school. But things didn't pan out, so he fell back on a career in law enforcement.

His father also taught him to respect police officers.

"My dad said really there's four words that ought to come out of your mouth if a policeman stops you, and that's ‘Yes, sir,' and ‘No, sir,'" Burton said. "And the only question you ought to have is, ‘What can I do to help you, sir?'"

Burton's only real job has been with the University Police Department. He took an internship with UPD while he was still a student at Ball State, and since then the police department has been his only employer. He's worked at UPD for 31 years and he's not even 55.

Burton said most police officers work for 20 years and then retire, and of course he's well past that. He just isn't sure what he'll do next. He's still got a few things left to accomplish.

"As far as legacy, it's pretty simple," he said. "I want to leave this place better than where I found it."

The department has already changed a lot since he signed on. The job description used to be that of a security guard, checking doors and doing some law enforcement. When he started, nobody had even heard the term "active shooter," Burton said.

Now UPD's responsibilities are the same as any municipal officer, and they've handled everything short of an active shooter or hostage situation.

Burton and his wife, Barbara, met at Ball State, but neither of them have ties in the community. They have three adult sons, but none of them live close by.

As far as what's next for Burton, it's anybody's guess.

"You look at leaving, and I look at, ‘Where would I go?'" Burton said. "I'll worry about that when the time comes, a couple years down the road."

Complaints filed by year

2007- 11

2008- 14

2009- 6

2010- 12

2011- 6 to date

Suspensions since 2007- 7

Terminations since 2007- 5  


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