What Can Campus Police Learn From Charlottesville?

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Weeks after the Charlottesville violence had faded from mainstream news coverage, an internal working group tasked with reviewing the University of Virginia’s response outlined ways the campus could better prepare for similar situations in the future.

The group’s report acknowledged that the violent nature of the protests was unprecedented for UVa. After scrutinizing how the demonstrations unfolded, the group identified multiple ways it said the university could have responded more effectively.

Among the criticisms lodged were gaps in intelligence gathering, with the police passing up opportunities to collect information from “alternative sources.” University policies need work — both in substance and how they were applied situationally, the report shows.

Sue Riseling, executive director of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, agreed that certain aspects could’ve been handled better in the lead-up to the rally, which saw torch-wielding white supremacists surrounding counterprotesters on the campus. But she also cautioned that blaming police actions for the situation that developed would be misguided.

“Some of what I read in the Virginia report is to be expected and is fairly typical of any operation,” Ms. Riseling said. “I think there are a lot of campuses that would not have fared any better, or maybe even potentially worse, than the University of Virginia.”

Changing Protests

Multiple campus police chiefs told The Chronicle that there has been a marked change in recent years in how protests have unfolded.

Informed by decades of work as a campus law-enforcement officer, Ms. Riseling said the protests at Charlottesville were of a different variety than those of the recent past. Protesters ready to enact violence isn’t what universities are used to seeing, she said.

“Campuses often have demonstrations, sit-ins, marches. That’s not uncommon on college and university campuses across our country,” she said. “What’s different is when a group comes with all of the baggage and all of the edginess and all of the willingness to use violence to further their political goal.”

What also comes, she said, are counterprotesters, “who may use nonviolence, but who may also become violent in how they go about presenting their point of view. It feels different, very different, than the past several decades of where students have marched on campuses about any number of things, but it has not usually ended up in a fight or in very strong, heavy-handed actions by counterprotesters.”

There’s some uncertainty as to the reasons for the shift and the exact point when the mostly peaceful protests that campus chiefs were used to began transforming. That shift may just mirror increasing political polarization.

“It’s endemic within the societal fabric,” said Adam Garcia, assistant vice president and director of police services at the University of Nevada at Reno. “I think a lot has changed in how these protests have turned from relatively peaceful to fairly violent over the last five or six years. I don’t think I’d necessarily classify it as institutional in nature. It’s part of everything else that’s in place.”

Iowa State University hasn’t seen such events yet. Michael Newton, chief of police and assistant vice president for public safety there, is active in law-enforcement training circles and has taught classes on protest preparation. In his view, the shift in protest attitudes harks back to a different decade.

“We’ve kind of seen this shift where we’re ebbing back to some of the things that we saw in the ’60s and ’70s with people just being more passionate, more into the causes they support,” Mr. Newton said.

John Kaplan leads the public safety department at Boise State University. Before that, he was the chief of police at the State University of New York at Potsdam, “where there was a lot of protest in the ’60s and ’70s.” Things have been peaceful on his campuses during the years he’s served, Mr. Kaplan said, but he’s observed an uptick in violent protests on a national level, too.

Charlottesville as a Case Study

The campus law-enforcement group, known by its acronym, Iaclea, will use the events that played out at the University of Virginia to frame a forthcoming series of trainings called “When Hate Comes to Campus.” Attendees will receive training on hate groups and learn about the tactics that Ms. Riseling and others have been observing in recent years. Sessions will be split between learning about “people who use violence to further a political aim and use campuses as their forums” and tips and strategies for being prepared when they come to a campus.

Campus chiefs say a lot of the work involves doubling down on existing policies, while making sure not to underestimate groups and not to expect future protests to transpire precisely as past ones have. Even campuses where administrators have strong relationships with the student body are at risk when outsiders with ill intentions come to demonstrate. Following every intelligence lead and considering all potential outcomes in advance are key to preparation, they say.

“Sometimes we forget about the policies and procedures to assist in making these events much safer and much more secure on the front end,” Mr. Newton said.

Boise State already had protest policies in place, Mr. Kaplan said, but now it is creating a protest-response team composed of people from several divisions of the university. “We’re not doing anything differently, but we’re doing more,” he said. The department is also working on an online hub with information on how demonstrators can organize on campus while complying with laws and university policies.

The events in Charlottesville “really brought awareness to how quickly a protest and a counterprotest has the potential to turn violent, and in that case fatal,” Mr. Kaplan said. “And it’s not that there’s more scrutiny” of groups planning demonstrations, he said, “but there’s more advanced planning, with a wider group of campus partners.”

Mr. Garcia said the Reno campus was already well prepared for protests and welcoming of diverse viewpoints. Still, protests that have turned violent are on his mind.

“Beginning with some of the events that took place in 2016, we have taken a much broader interest in protecting not only those who take part in these events but also law enforcement as well, because some of them have turned violent,” Mr. Garcia said. “We have changed in the sense that we are cognizant of what has taken place and want to ensure … that it doesn’t happen here.”

Reno’s efforts include communicating with groups before their scheduled events, increasing staffing for events, and taking note of when things have turned sour on other campuses, he said.