Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two-part series examining the use of firearms by university police at Iowa State and other Regent universities in Iowa.

The Iowa Board of Regents opposes giving firearms to university police. After being unarmed in a violent encounter, one officer is taking his fight outside the Regents’ jurisdiction.

Triggering Response

Assisting with an ambulance call in May 2001, UNI Police Lt. Gary McCormack was attacked by a man he was trying to help.

“I got there before the ambulance and the guy suddenly grabbed a large steak knife and attacked me with it,” he said.

McCormack was able to subdue the man and gain control of the situation.

“That’s the nature of the job,” he said. “You seldom know what you’re getting into and a vast majority of the time you don’t know the state of mind of someone.”

After the attack, McCormack filed a grievance for workplace safety with the University of Northern Iowa, then with the Iowa Board of Regents, citing he was not given adequate equipment to do his job – he was denied every step of the way, he said.

In 2003, McCormack exchanged correspondence with the Board office. He explained that not being armed hindered his ability to do his job and requested time to present information to Board members.

McCormack received three letters from the Board office, including one in which he was told his grievance did not violate Iowa Administrative Code 681-3.1, a chapter that defines personnel administration actions. In another, McCormack was told his grievance was denied because Regents were not interested and had not asked about the issue.

Gary Steinke, acting executive director of the Regents, said his office does not kill or stop issues. There is a full discussion about every issue. The Board’s staff members obtain information from institutions and elsewhere in order to help Board members govern the institutions.

In defense of the Board’s office, Iowa City Regent Bob Downer said he remembers the grievance.

“It was rejected,” he said. “The issue was researched by the legal staff of the Board, who found the issue did not represent a basis for action. The officer appealed this decision and the appeal was denied.”

In response, McCormack turned to Iowa’s division of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. When the agency refused to investigate his grievance, however, McCormack filed a lawsuit against the agency. Now he is waiting for a decision from the Iowa Supreme Court regarding his appeal against I-OSHA.

If the court rules in McCormack’s favor, he said the Regents should have to make a decision.

“The only reason we went to I-OSHA was because we couldn’t get the Regents and the university to deal with their own issues,” McCormack said. “Have [the Board] choose who they want to do the police work, either their officers or an outside agency. Either protect the officers properly or get someone else to do it.”

Downer said the grievances could be examined within the Board of Regents.

“There are ways that this can be brought up before the Board,” he said. “Certainly we would study it and make appropriate changes if we felt those changes were needed, but everything we’ve received – to my knowledge, in the past two and a half years – has been anecdotal.”

ISU Police Sgt. Darin Van Ryswyk said he is afraid Board members are not aware of the issue. For example, officers took a run at the Board during former ISU President Martin Jischke’s tenure, but the issue never got outside the president’s office.

“There is a buffer that exists. I mean, information [moving] outside the university, to the Regents and back to the university from the Regents is going to move through the president’s office,” he said. “This is an organization that has a hierarchy, and to a large extent, people have to respect that and try to work within it.”

Field experience

Handguns are available to university officers, but only in extreme circumstances and with approval from the university president.

Chapter 9 of the Board’s administrative rules defines it as “emergency power,” authorized to the university president to deter clear and present danger and protect university property and personnel.

ISU Police train annually with their own stock of handguns – the SIG Sauer P229 .40 caliber Smith & Wesson model, said ISU Public Safety Director Jerry Stewart.

Carrying a firearm does not necessarily mean officers will use it when a higher level of force may be warranted.

Matt DeLisi, assistant professor of sociology focusing on criminal justice, said police officer’s use of force has to be proportionate to a suspect’s behavior.

“Research has found that officers use a much lower level of force than they could have. In other words, they under-apply their lawful use of force,” he said. “There are about 76 million interactions between police officers and the public and roughly 300 instances occur where lethal force is used.”

When he arrived at Iowa State, DeLisi was shocked the Regents had a policy that did not allow officers to be armed, he said. The good thing about the Regent’s decision is that it fosters the idea that law enforcement officers on the college campus do not need to be armed, he said.

Police at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, a school nearly the same size in student population as Iowa State, carry side arms.

“We’re a full-service police department, commissioned with the same powers as other police departments. … and in order to accomplish those goals, we need to be armed for the public’s safety and the safety of our officers,” said UNL Police Chief Owen Yardley.

Despite having guns available, Yardley said he doesn’t believe lethal force has ever been used at the university, but does remember when an officer was shot on a street that runs through campus.

Officers at the University of Nebraska’s other locations in Omaha and Kearney do not carry firearms, he said. Officers on the Omaha campus are not commissioned and even though officers at Kearney are certified through the state, they do not carry firearms.

Charles Wilson, member of the Nebraska Board of Regents since 1990, could not comment on the difference between policies because officers haven’t raised the issue.

“I don’t know. That issue has never been raised before the Board in 14 years,” he said.

DeLisi said the ISU campus is not necessarily safer because officers do not carry handguns.

“You probably don’t have to have lethal firearms on college campuses because you just don’t have the threat,” DeLisi said.

Van Ryswyk said he could do his job better with a firearm, but does not want to give up his Taser. He said he wants every option available to do his job.

“As a faculty member, it doesn’t matter to me,” DeLisi said. “The policy seems to be working just fine, and there’s no need to change it. And it works symbolically. Now, if an officer is killed, there should be some discussion about it, but as long as the officers don’t mind it, I don’t think I should.”

Most police activity is spent as service activity, he said, and most people are civil and compliant.

“An officer is his own worst enemy,” Van Ryswyk said. “We go into situations like we’re armed. We have a well-trained police department – what we lack is equipment.”