While the University Police Department offers many services to students on campus, they also provide similar services to students off campus in the Canyon community. They are state certified peace officers with jurisdiction, so they are available to help anyone in the community if they are able to do so.
“UPD is dedicated to the campus community, both on campus and off,” Shawn Burns, UPD Chief of Police, said. “If UPD officers can be of assistance to our faculty, staff, students and community, I expect them to help as much as possible.”
At this time, UPD does not extend those public services outside of Canyon. Burns said UPD offers services in Canyon as a public service to their community.
“We like to help our campus constituents as much as possible,” Burns said.
If a student is locked out of their car or finds himself/herself with a dead battery, Burns said that is a crisis to that student at that point in time, and it would not leave a favorable impression if the police are contacted but do not show up to help.
“We want parents to know that we will try to assist their students as much as we can, but there are limitations,” Burns said.
The primary focus of UPD is that of criminal law enforcement. Though that remains their main priority, UPD wants to help wherever and whenever they can as public servants. As the chief, Burns must manage the two the best he can, so they limit some of what they do. For instance, if a student is locked out of their car in Amarillo, UPD cannot assist them because of the number of resources readily available in Amarillo.
In addition to extending police services into the Canyon community, UPD also partners with the Canyon Police Department and assists their department when needed.
“The working relationship between UPD and the surrounding agencies is a good working relationship, especially in relation to [CPD],” Gabriel Arriaga, detective at UPD, said. “A UPD officer may be their only backup, so the officers of UPD definitely get along well with the officers of CPD.”
While the two agencies generally work closely together, UPD generally will not get involved in a case where a WT student gets into trouble of some sort off campus unless it involves in an official university function or trip.
“We do sometimes hear from other agencies if our students are causing disruptions or problems in the community, and we will do what we can to help remedy the situation, but as a general rule, the university does not sanction [off-campus] behavior,” Burns said.
However, according to UPD, there could be some situations in which there are university consequences, but they are very specific situations.
According to UPD’s Facebook page, “UPD strives every day to improve the quality of life of all who come to campus.”
UPD has agreements with CPD, Randall County Sheriff’s Office and the Amarillo Police Department in order to ensure adequate resources are available to UPD should something big happen on campus and to provide assistance to those agencies should they need it.
