Campus security rounds no pleasure cruise
By Mark Hoffman
The UNL campus security
headquarters received a call about
10:30 on a Sunday night.
The Smith Hall residence director
reported an attempt to break into the
vending machines in the Smith
basement.
Less than five minutes after the
call, Sgt. Maurice Schuknescht was in
the Smith lobby talking to residence
director Dori Bush. A few minutes
later he had stopped two students in
the Schramm Hall lobby.
A tire iron was found in the
basement, identification was made by
the Smith resident who first had seen
the two students and confessions were
obtained.
Such incidents are rare, but they
arc the type that cruiser patrol officers
are prepared to handle, according to
an officer who worked with
Schuknescht that night.
Many students might know the
cruiser pat i ol only as traffic cops-the
officers that keep students from
running red lights and going 25 in 15
m.p.h. campus speed ?ones.
Besides traffic control, cruiser
officer.s patrol parking lots, answer
calls for assistance and handle
incidents ranging from fraternity rock
fights to finding stolen cars.
When campus security started
patrolling UNL parking lots instead of
cruising the streets waiting for
something to happen, theft from cars
was greatly reduced, he said.
He ci edited student participation in
reducing incidents of major crime on
the UNL campus.
Collier this year, a dormitory
resident spotted someone stealing tires
oil a car in a dormitory lot. He called
campus security, and a cruiser arrived
to stop the theft, although the
won Id-be-thief escaped.
Theie also was the Smith resident
who repoited and identified the two
students iu. .the vending machine
break-in attempt.
According to Schuknescht, it is the
job of campus security to reinforce a
feeling of cooperation between UIML
students and campus police.
In dealing with campus security,
the attitude a student develops toward
an officei might be the attitude
towiiid law officeis he keeps for the
rest of his life, Schuknescht said.
"What would we gain by throwing
eicy student in jail for being drunk?"
he asked. It that student applies for a
civil set vice job Liter on, he might be
i ejected because he has been in jail, he
said.
Campus security, however, does not
turn its back on violations such as diug
use, Schuknescht said.
"I took an oalh to uphold the laws
ol the city, state and the (U.S.)
Constitution" when he became an
ol I icer, Schuknescht said.
f'ailoie to do so could result in a
$10,000 (me and dismissal fiomduty,
he said, He said he would he risking
too much by not acting if tie came
acioss students using di ugs,
A lb year campus security veteran,
Schuknescht said campus security's
job is helped by students' attitudes
about college.
"Students
education," he
UNl's lack ol
(leneial honesty
aie hen; loi an
said, He attributed
senous dime to a
among students and
concern loi otheis' i ights.
So lai this yeai, only one majoi
ci ime -a thelt horn a doimitoiy
loom has been icpoitcd, he said. The
Iteisnn involved was not a student, he
said.
He said doimitoiy theft decreased
altei the beginning of the semester
because students wen; able to
iecognie who did oi did not live on
then llonis. He said students were
moic cautious about leaving their
doois ojien d a sti angei was on the
llooi
wcdtK'sdciy, novcrnl)cr 28, 1973
Distinguishing students from
nonstudents is a preventive measure,
and prevention is 90 per cent of police
work, according to campus security
officer Merlin Howe.
"If a person is on campus at 2:30
a.m., we (campus security) want to
know who he is," Howe said.
If a person is a student, nothing is
done, he said. If the person is a
nonstudent, campus security will ask
him why he is on campus, he said.
Nothing will be done to the
nonstudent who has a reason to be on
campus, even if he only is there for a
walk, Howe said. If the nonstudent
does not have a good reason for being
on campus, campus security escorts
him o(f campus, he said.
Campus cruisers patrol 24 hours a
day, seven days a week.
"If a thief sees campus security
every direction he looks, he probably
won't come back," Howe said.
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