USD Magazine Spring 2007

USD MAGAZINE 4 AROUND THE PARK I t’s a big responsibility. “The mission of the department is to provide a safe and secure envi- ronment for the campus com- munity,” says Larry Barnett, assis- tant vice president for public safety. Students may be USD’s largest stakeholder, but the charge also includes protecting faculty, staff and visitors. The lat- ter category may include dig nitaries who don’t come with their own security detail, such as Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian human rights lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner who spoke on cam- pus in September. Barnett prides himself on run- by Kelly Knufken [ w a t c h d o g ]

COMMANDING RESPECT P u b l i c S a f e t y k e e p s t h e p e a c e o n c a m p u s

Barnett says. (The department’s annual report, which includes sta- tistics for 2005 and other important public safety information, can be found at www.sandiego.edu/safety; click the Annual Report link.) The ongoing charge for the Department of Public Safety is to remind students and others to protect themselves and their valuables. “To me, the message is, ‘Be aware of the potential for crime to occur,’” Barnett says. Toward that end, before the Fall 2006 school year began, Public Safety was working with the Mission Beach Town Council, the San Diego Police Depart-

ning a department that functions professionally, like a sworn police department, ready to respond to anything that happens on cam- pus. Still, the San Diego Police Department would be the pri- mary responder for any felonies that may occur on campus. “We have for many years had a strong relationship with the San Diego Police Department,” Bar- nett says. That includes working on the College Law Enforcement Task Force, which looks to solve problems both on- and off- local college campuses. Most incidents that do occur on campus are crimes of opportunity,

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