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Class reunion
The Belmont High School class of 1961 will hold its reunion, Oct. 4.
For details, call Ron Robinson at (888)263-4434 or (704)263-4434, or Mary McGinnis at (770)434-7927.
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BAC Police Department staffers stay busy in training
By THOMAS LARK
- Thu, Apr 24, 2008
BELMONT—Vigilance and training are the keys to campus safety at Belmont Abbey College.
That’s how Chief Shane Starnes summed up his mission with the BAC Police Department last week. Starnes oversees six other full-time officers on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week, year-round.
A veteran of the BACPD since 2001, Starnes made his staff a round-the-clock constant unit when he assumed the helm as both chief and the college’s director of safety in August of 2007.
“But now, by hiring the right people and with the core leadership of Abbot Placid Solari and (college president) Dr. William Thierfelder, as well as our new vice president for enrollment management and student affairs, Dr. Lucas Lamadrid, we’ve really been helped a lot,” Starnes said. “I also want to say how generous Abbot Placid has been to all law enforcement in the county. The abbot is extremely pro-law enforcement and has assisted not only my department but all the others as well.
“Visibility is so important,” the chief added. “I think we’re more respected now by the community. We have the same duties and responsibilities as any municipal police department.”
And that, he said, means a reduction in crime. Before his tenure began years ago, the BACPD’s officers were regarded by most as not being much different from mere security guards. But today, that image has changed completely.
“We do an incredible amount of training,” said Starnes. “People don’t realize that, above and beyond the 624-plus hours of Basic Law Enforcement Training, you have countless hours of training as a campus police officer. And then you have state-mandated tests through the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office that are specific to campus and community policing issues. Plus, there’s 24 hours of mandated state training on top of our own training.
“When I became chief, I set some goals and some target areas to focus on: mentality, morale and operations makeovers. And I think we have dramatically improved all those areas.”
The BACPD’s jurisdiction comprises any property owned and maintained by the college and its adjoining streets and roads, including Belmont-Mount Holly Road as it runs past the campus and nearby portions of I-85.
And talking of training, the chief himself recently attended a symposium of the N.C. Independent Colleges and Universities, a statewide organization providing research and information. Noting last week’s one-year anniversary of the shootings at Virginia Tech, Starnes said the idea of arming college students for protection came up for discussion at the meeting.
“Police chiefs have been asked to talk to legislators before this becomes an issue,” he said. “As a group, we in law enforcement are opposed to this. We don’t want to take anything from the rights of people to bear arms. But in a college campus situation, the questions become, ‘How well do you know the person beside you in class?’ or ‘What is his mental capacity?’ Arming students just isn’t the answer. The answer is having a well-trained, well-equipped campus police force that is professionally trained to handle these types of crisis situations.”
The goal, said Starnes, is to have a campus police department that lives up to Thierfelder’s own standards of excellence and virtue.
“I think we do that,” said the chief. “But you can’t just rest on your laurels. You’ve got to work at it constantly. We’re lucky to be at such a quiet, law-abiding campus as Belmont Abbey. Ours is a student body that is Christian, mature and serious. And having such a small campus, you can take the time to get to know individual students—certainly by face if not always by name. People will know you and be comfortable with you. They’ll come to you.”
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