News-Letter

Media Credit: Daniel Litwin Officer Marty Fridinger showed a News-Letter reporter around.

In light of concerns over campus security that arose from last week's election night arrests, this News-Letter reporter spent one Sunday night shadowing a Hopkins Campus Police Officer, more commonly known as a "HopCop," to determine the extent of their powers.

According to Officer Marty Fridinger, a Baltimore City Police officer of 25 years and Hopkins police officer for 10 years, "HopCops" are unable to exercise full police powers, which include making arrests beyond the Hopkins campus and around the Homewood campus.

Fridinger explained that the campus officers are commissioned by the University and thus limited to the Hopkins campus and surrounding areas.

"Say something happened here on the streets - we don't really have police powers unless it's a felony," he explained.

"If I see someone getting robbed, I can jump out and assist, but any [civilian] can actually do that."

HopCops are under orders to report suspicious or illegal activity that they see on the streets surrounding campus, but they are not legally certified to intervene themselves.

"We can't actually get out to enforce the law if someone's breaking into a car. In that scenario, you call it in," Fridinger said.

In contrast to felonies, defined by Fridinger as crimes with a minimum jail time of one year, campus police officers are able to respond to misdemeanors such as car break-ins or the presence of suspicious persons by notifying city police officers.

Fridinger introduced Officer Bill O'Donnell, one of several Baltimore police officers who patrol the campus, as the liaison officer between campus police and the city department.

"We see him all the time. If anything needs to be reported, if we need help or something, we call Bill," Fridinger said. "There are a lot of things that can happen [on the streets] and we have to report on them, but it's stuff we can't take action on ourselves."

Under the Jeanne Clery Act, named after Lehigh University freshman Jeanne Clery who was raped and murdered in 1986, the campus police must report on all crime near the campus even when it involves something that they cannot act upon.

While Hopkins campus police officers are confined in their actions against crime, they are highly trained professionals; many, such as Fridinger, are retired city police officers, and all receive on-campus training that includes responding to sexual harassment, hate crimes and first aid.

Continued...

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