The Associated Press
MUNCIE, Ind. (AP) -- Ball State University’s practice of allowing its campus police officers to work alone on patrol shifts before completing a state academy program is unusual, a newspaper’s survey found.
None of the police departments at 18 other colleges surveyed by The Star Press said they would have permitted rookie Ball State Officer Robert Duplain to be on a solo patrol as he was the night he fatally shot a student.
While Delaware County prosecutors are having a grand jury review the Nov. 8 shooting of 21-year-old Michael McKinney, Ball State officials are reconsidering the police patrol policies.
One other rookie Ball State officer also has yet to attend the Indiana police academy, but works the midnight shift and takes off-campus calls by himself.
“We are going to make a decision soon on whether or not to do that,” Ball State Police Chief Gene Burton said. “If I had my way, sure I would want them to go to the academy first.”
Duplain, who was hired in April and was scheduled to attend the police academy in January, shot McKinney four times after responding to a call about 3:30 a.m. of a stranger pounding on the door of a near-campus house. Duplain and a witness who lives at a neighboring house have said McKinney lunged at the officer and did not follow commands to stop before the shots were fired.
Ball State officials said officers without academy training commonly patrol alone because their police department does not have the manpower to have new officers only work with experienced ones.
Officers at all 18 other departments in the newspaper’s survey said new hires who have not been certified by their state were restricted mostly to duties such as observing older officers, dispatching calls, directing traffic or filling out paperwork.
Schools in the survey included Indiana, Indiana State, Notre Dame, Evansville, Indiana-Purdue-Fort Wayne, Ohio, Marshall, Central Michigan, Kent State and Eastern Michigan.
New Ball State officers must complete a 40-hour course offered by the department and a 14-week field training program, in which they are paired with an experienced training officer, before being assigned to solo patrol.
Scott Mellinger, the director of the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy in Plainfield, said he wished all officers in Indiana could attend the academy before being assigned to patrol alone.
“Having officers come to the academy immediately would be my first choice,” Mellinger said. “The general public is going to say, ‘Heck, yes, they should go to the academy first.’ But people in the law enforcement field know it can work to not send them right away.”