Ana Mendoza / The Collegian

When the excitement of game-day arrives at Bulldog Stadium, campus crime is one thing students may not think about, but questions have arisen regarding campus-police’s presence on campus during football games.

“Sometimes I do worry something bad will happen since people are pretty rowdy after the games,” said Vanessa Trevino, a senior at Fresno State. Although she feels there are an adequate number of officers on campus, she still has concern.

Amy Armstrong, public information officer of the Campus Police Department at Fresno State, said that on game days the university does increase police presence and contracts individual police officers from the Fresno Police Department.

“We do contract them to work for us during football games,” Armstong said. “We let them know how many we will need to handle the event and pay them to work those events with us.”

Sophomore Alex Coyle said that he is not worried about there being more crime on game days.

“I’ve been attending the games with my family before college and the environment of the football game has always been a safe one,” Coyle said.

Coyle said that there may be more break-ins during games, but it won’t happen if people do the right things.

“People have to be smart and park the cars in safe areas,” Coyle said. “I wouldn’t’ park my car in some dark, unlit alley with no people nearby.”

Armstrong said that the contracted officers are sworn police officers and work with university police officers to handle any on-campus issues that may arise during the events.
Armstrong said if there are any problems that occur off-campus, students should call FPD.

Though university police officers can respond to calls on the perimeters of campus during football games, Armstrong wants to clarify that the contracted offers do not because they come from different districts all over the city and are often not from the northeast district where the university resides in.

Some students are confused as to what the exact jurisdiction of the university police officers is and what is considered off-campus. Coyle said he was told by some of his friends that Fresno State police officers respond to problems up to a mile away from campus.

“I thought they covered areas like the apartment complexes past the stadium,” Coyle said. “If something was to happen to me there I would have thought to call university police.”

Armstrong said the jurisdiction for university police officers ends west at Millbrook, south at Shaw, east at Chestnut and north at Barstow unless it is the farm property that extends all the way up to Sierra Ave.

“Anything that is beyond the property of the campus the FPD will handle, but the California Education code does give the university police jurisdiction there as well,” Armstrong said.

“We do communicate with Fresno Police on a frequent basis when there is activity on the campus perimeter. We do communicate with each other and work together to handle any issues.”