Morale has degraded
After a letter to the Collegiate Times stated that "Tech doesn't want to expend finances toward improving its campus security until it is forced to," complaints about the state of Tech's campus watch and security guards' equipment have surfaced.
Campus watch members and security guards work under the Virginia Tech Police Department and are meant to complement the campus' sworn police officers.
"Campus watch is designed to be a few extra eyes and ears around the campus for the police department as an overall program, and their intent is to provide security for residence hall areas," said Deborah Morgan, lieutenant with the VTPD.
Campus watch is sponsored by residential and dining programs; however, the security guards are employed and paid by the VTPD, Morgan said. Campus watch includes the lock up guards, the building guards, and the safe ride van.
Campus watch is responsible for walking around residence halls to make sure doors aren't propped open, reporting anything that happens around that area to the police department, checking the emergency call boxes to make sure they work properly, manning some of the buildings they have on campus, and more.
"They're issued the same equipment, like radios, as the police officers," Morgan said. "Their uniforms are different because you have to differentiate between the police and the security guards."
However, Steven Miller, Blacksburg citizen and friend to some employees of campus watch, said that the program is not getting all the resources it needs.
"My beef with campus watch is they're not being supplied with the equipment that they need and the training that they need to do the job," Miller said.
Recently, Miller wrote a letter to the CT entitled "little has changed in terms of security since April."
An anonymous source from campus watch said that he is actively looking for another job because the employees are not getting the resources to do this job. He also said the he is not the only one from campus watch that is looking for another job.
The source said that some of the employees have not been given proper training such as a diffusing bad situation training programs and a safe-defense training program. He also said that some of the employees do not have flashlights, and the building guards who do perimeter checks sometimes stumble on steps because they can't see.
Morgan disputed the claim that campus watch does not have adequate equipment. She said that employees are issued jackets, pants, a waist belt, the lock-up tools they need, boots and anything else that the would need to perform their job.
However, the campus watch worker said that the uniform that the employees must wear, consisting of a short sleeve shirt and a pair of cargo pants, are getting holes and the pockets are falling off. He also said that the equipment is sometimes faulty.
"The radios aren't trustworthy," he said. "They are six, seven years old and pretty much police hand-me-down radios with NiCad-rechargeable battery packs. By the end of the shift, the batteries' charge is gone."
Because some of the radios cease to work toward the end of the shift, some employees are forced to use their personal cell phones to code-in to dispatch, or signify that things are all right on their end, he said. However, the source also mentioned that according to the police handbook, the use of personal equipment is prohibited.
"They're degrading campus watch to a feel-good existence because we don't have the training or equipment to do the job," he said. "Morale has gotten very low among campus watch because they feel, 'what good am I?' We're being treated like a feel-good measure."
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