Every year the cops you see around campus go through training. Each Officer on the campus squad is certified by the State of North Carolina and completes the basic law enforcement training. But protecting a campus is a little different than the typical police work.
Campus police captain and chief instructional officer, Vickie Moehlman, says that dealing with students is different. Every year the campus welcomes new faces.
"It's a different type of police work, because your clients change. You don't have the same people," said Moehlman.
Elon Police Chief Dennis Franks wants more training, and to improve the quality of their training program in any way they can.
"Yes, that is the minimum, but you can always do more," said Franks determined. We look at outside training vendors that can come in and do training. As a matter of fact, over the Christmas break, we have a group coming in to do training: a 20 hour training block for our security staff."
The 24 hour training is divided into 3 parts. 12 hours of policing topics assigned by the state of North Carolina. This could range from traffic interdiction to surviving use of force incident. 4 hours of firearms training and 8 hours of topics the department can choose. Over the past couple years, they've been familiarizing themselves with a close friend to the college student: social media.
"We use it as crime prevention. We can use it as a way to get information out that students need to know right away," said Vickie Moehlman.
Moehlman often uses social media to remind students about Safe Rides, and to be safe.
Officers agree that having annual training in the summers keeps their skills sharp in case they have to react to a dangerous situation.
"We train together on things with the town of Elon police. We work well together," said Frank. "We just remain vigilant, and continue to be out to do what our job is, and to be visible. A lot of times that will deter incidents from occurring"