Report: Campus police rarely use guns

Excluding training, police at Iowa's three regent universities drew their guns and pointed them only a handful of times in 2009, typically when assisting other law enforcement agencies during off-campus incidents.

And university police typically only fired their weapons last year to kill injured deer, according to the latest annual report on campus safety and security that goes to the state Board of Regents next week. It was released Thursday as part of the regents meeting agenda.

Officers at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa began carrying guns in late 2007.

UI Police had an accidental gun discharge in December in public safety headquarters on campus. The safety report says no one was injured and appropriate disciplinary action was taken, but UI officials have declined to comment beyond that. That officer, former Public Safety Associate Director Larry Langley, ended his UI employment Jan. 4.

Other than that incident, UI police drew their weapons twice, once during a felony warrant traffic stop and once when assisting a federal drug investigation in rural Johnson County.

At ISU, an officer fired his weapon to kill an injured deer, the only time a gun was drawn by an ISU officer on campus in 2009, the report says. Two ISU officers drew and pointed their weapons while assisting Ames police at a murder-suicide off campus.

UNI police used their guns to kill three injured deer on campus in 2009, and drew their guns once off campus while assisting Cedar Falls police in response to an armed robbery.

UI police responded to nearly twice as many smoking ban violations as did police at ISU and UNI, according to the report. UI officers responded to 312 prohibited smoking calls, 270 of them initiated by police and 42 stemming from complaints. Of those, 25 citations were issued.

ISU police received or initiated 151 smoking-related calls in 2009, issuing 67 citations and 131 warnings. UNI officers responded to 112 complaints of smoking violations, issuing 80 warnings and six citations.