Volume 36, No. 4 - July/ August 2006 Campus Law ... - IACLEA

FBI, Campus Safety Partnership Is ExpandingBy Christopher G. Blake, CAE, WMD Project DirectorThe Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)is engaging with campus public safetyleaders on initiatives and activities to protectthe nation “on a scale not seen before,”the director of the FBI’s Office ofLaw Enforcement Coordination told delegateswho attended the Public PolicyGeneral Session at the 2006 IACLEA AnnualConference.“There are 4,200 communities inAmerica that we call colleges and universities,”said Louis F. Quijas, the FBI’s assistantdirector for the Office of Law EnforcementCoordination. “By serving andprotecting these communities, you add aprotective layer to the cities, counties, andregions in which your campus is located,”Quijas said.Campuses present a rich and invitingtarget for those intent on doing harm toour country, Quijas said. Recent events,including the suicide bomber who detonatedoutside of a football game at theUniversity of Oklahoma and a student inNorth Carolina who drove a vehicle intoa crowd of university students, highlightthe need for campus law enforcementand the FBI to work together.He outlined significant achievementsattained by the FBI and the campus publicsafety community during the past year:• IACLEA’s president is now a memberof the FBI Director’s Law EnforcementAdvisory Group (DLEAG).• Across the country, ten Joint TerrorismTask Forces (JTTFs) now have acampus law enforcement officer assignedto them and the FBI is workingto expand that number.Jeff Allison, senior law enforcement advisor toDHS (left), Daniel Carter of Security on Campus(center), Louis F. Quijas, FBI assistant director ofthe Office of Law Enforcement Coordination.Rob Dolin, National Institute ofJustice.• The Office of Law Enforcement Coordinationhas authorized a slot in thePolice Executive Fellowship Program(PEFP) for a campus officer.• The FBI actively supported and participatedin the U.S. Department ofJustice, Office of Community OrientedPolicing Services (COPS) National Summiton Campus Public Safety. This summitlaid the groundwork for the creationof a proposed National Centerfor Campus Public Safety, which is thegoal of a grant received recently byIACLEA.• The FBI, the U.S. Department ofHomeland Security, and IACLEA cosponsoredthe Lake Charles LessonsLearned Listening Session in March toidentify and disseminate key lessonslearned from campus public safety executiveswho weathered hurricanesKatrina and Rita and two executiveswho had incidents on their campusesinvolving explosives.• FBI Director Robert Mueller createdthe National Security Higher EducationAdvisory Board this year, designedto foster outreach and to promote understandingbetween higher educationand the FBI.• Three members of IACLEA and threemembers of the College and UniversityPolice Section of the InternationalAssociation of Chiefs of Police (IACP)have been added to the FBI SIOC LawEnforcement Alert Message (SLAM),which is run out of the 24/7 StrategicInformation and Operations Center.• The FBI each month produces CampusPublic Safety News and sends itto key members of IACLEA and theIACP section for further disseminationto members. Campus Public SafetyNews provides current information(primarily open source) that is of crosscuttinginterest to the FBI, DHS, andcampus public safety agencies.The office’s priorities over the nextyear are to expand campus public safetyContinued on page 3332 / Campus Law Enforcement Journal