Officer Ryan Dobbe at the Colorado College Campus Safety Department, with the assistance of the new Campus Resource Officer Martin Toland, is currently developing a program to prevent Craigslist exchanges on campus from spiraling into armed robberies.
On Jan. 5, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs sent out an e-mail alert to students concerning an attempted armed robbery on campus tied to a false Craigslist deal. One week later, a report of an armed robbery committed only three blocks from the University of Colorado Boulder was linked to a fabricated Craigslist meet-up.
Campus Safety at Colorado College is at work to ensure that nothing of the sort occurs on their watch.
“When you meet a person you don’t know to sell something, there’s a little bit of risk involved,” said Officer Dobbe, the community liaison for Slocum Hall and developer of the program. “A program like this being held at a Campus Safety Office decreases the risk of being scammed.”
Program participants will schedule an exchange meeting with the Campus Safety dispatcher.
Meetings between sellers and buyers will take place in one of two locations: the Campus Safety parking lot for larger item exchanges, and the Campus Safety office lobby for smaller items. Both areas are under surveillance, and any foul play will prompt the dispatcher to alert officers to intervene on-site.
Such programs are typically only available at police departments, but Officer Toland of the Colorado Springs Police Department explains the logic of such a program at a college Campus Safety office,
“[If you say] ‘Okay, we’re gonna meet here at the Campus Safety Office,’ and it’s on camera and there’s an officer,” said Toland. “We’re hoping that would curtail any possibility [of violent crime or robbery].”
Officer Toland is a fresh face to the Colorado College campus, filling the CRO position after the departure of Officer Jason Newton, who served the college for six years. Toland has worked at the Colorado Springs Police Department since 1997, and entered his position on Jan. 4, the beginning of Half Block.
Toland holds the college and its members in high esteem, and expressed that programs like the one Officer Dobbe is developing lend themselves to the mission of community building that is central to his role.
“We’re a liason between basically two worlds—the Colorado College campus life and everything that entails and the Colorado Springs Police Department,” said Toland. “My ultimate goal is to assist Campus Safety in the safety of everybody involved in the CC community. That’s students, faculty, and staff.”
Officer Toland emphasized that work as a liaison involves a crucial emphasis on education, and making enforcement a learning experience.
Patrol Officer Jon Ramsay, the instructor to the Self Defense class offered for women at the college, explained the vital importance of education as a main tenant of Campus Safety’s work.
“I think that what I like most about Colorado College is—or the Campus Safety Department is we get to be part of the educational process,” said Ramsay. “So although there’s a very little percentage of enforcement that we do, there’s a bigger percentage of education that we do on the other side of that.”
Officers constantly grapple with the assumption that Campus Safety’s work is all about enforcement of the law over students. The most public aspect of their work is patrol work and event work, specifically during active evenings on campus that include house parties and campus-wide events.
Even at such high-risk events for safety concerns, Officer Toland made clear that enforcement is not the primary goal of student-officer interaction.
“We will bend over backwards to avoid formal charges or enforcement on a student. That is not what we’re here for,” said Toland. “We will do everything possible to use that as learning situations, a teaching moment and for the most part we’re pretty successful in doing that.”
With the work being done to implement innovative programming and new members of the office, however, the officers are optimistic about what they can accomplish in the remainder of the academic year, and dispelling assumptions that Campus Safety is solely an enforcement agency.
The Craigslist program is expected to be operational within the next month, and is currently awaiting approval from the college. The program is still in development, and members of the community are encouraged to submit any suggestions they may have to make the program more effective.
Officers Dobbe, Toland, and Ramsay encourage members of the community to reach out to Campus Safety for even the most menial of questions, comments, and concerns. They would also like to make clear that as the CRO is a member of the CSPD, all of the resources that police forces provide are available to members of the Colorado College that require them at any time.
Campus Safety’s Office is located at 833 North Tejon St and is open 24 hours a day. Officer Dobbe and CRO Toland can be reached via e-mail at Ryan.Dobbe@coloradocollege.edu and Martin.Toland@coloradocollege.edu.
Brittany Camacho
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