IUPD student officers patrol their home ground

At 10:15 p.m. Saturday, part-time IU Police Department officer and senior Kyle Moulden was already at the station on 17th Street writing up his first police report of his night shift, which began shortly after 9 p.m.

The offense: a subject exposed his genitals and urinated on the side of Foster Quad Gresham. Moulden, who is the live-in IUPD officer at Foster, cited him for underage consumption of an alcoholic beverage but cut him some slack on the preliminary charges of public intoxication and nudity.

“Although he smelled very strongly of alcohol and was under 21, he was cooperative and honest,” Moulden said.

There is no science to writing the actual report, Moulden explained. He typed a brief summary of events in chronological order and handed it to the shift supervisor who corrected it for errors and missing information.

Make sure to include that a sober driver picked him up after he was let go, said one of the two shift supervisors that was on duty at the station.

The additional sentence was necessary to protect the department from liability issues. After making revisions, Moulden checked a box on the screen that would electronically send the report to the prosecutor’s office. A copy of all IUPD arrests also goes to the Dean of Students and Vice Provost for Student Affairs office.

By 10:45 p.m., he was back on patrol at Foster. After checking in with the resident assistants at the front desk, he completed a quick walk around the quad before meeting part-time IUPD officer and senior Ryan Skaggs at the circle drive. Skaggs is the live-in for McNutt Quad.

Moulden and Skaggs are two of 17 part-time IUPD officers who patrol the grounds of the residence halls they live in.

“There are 10 part-time officers on foot patrol tonight and three on bicycles, one in each residential neighborhood,” Moulden said.

Together, they make their way to McNutt. The night is unusually quiet for a Saturday, but the chilly weather may be partially to blame. Except for several individuals who entered vehicles at the McNutt circle, the only people outside are a handful of smokers gathered at the south breezeway.

“We aren’t the smoking police,” Moulden said.

Although they can choose to stop them if need be, they do not worry about petty offenses.

Here, they were joined with the part-time officer responsible for patrolling Briscoe Quad. He is accompanied by an IUPD cadet who will shadow him for the evening and experience firsthand his future responsibilities as a part-time IUPD officer. Although the officers are assigned to patrol one residence hall, the three officers frequently walk around the entire northwest neighborhood, emphasizing their allocated residence hall.
After they joked around for a few minutes, Moulden and Skaggs departed again. This time, they walked back towards Foster and glanced at the small cemetery located on Fee Lane. Moulden explained that intoxicated individuals occasionally spend time in the area.

At 12:30 a.m. a white Hyundai rolled through the stop sign across the street at Fee Lane and 13th Street. The driver and its passengers continued to Foster and stopped to enter Gresham Food Court. Moulden and Skaggs approached the driver to determine if she was intoxicated.

No breathalyzer was administered, and the officers had no reason to believe she had been drinking.

After the passengers of the Hyundai retreated into the food court, five clearly intoxicated males followed not far behind them.

“Even though they are clearly intoxicated, they are not causing a problem,” Moulden said. “We are not out here arresting every drunk person we see.”

While returning to McNutt, an RA texted Skaggs, informing him that someone might be smoking marijuana in the courtyard. Once at the courtyard, Skaggs and Moulden walked at two opposite angles and met where two males were sitting at an outside table. The smell was unable to be located.

It is now 1:25 a.m. and Moulden and Skaggs see another male urinating on a wall, this time on the side of McNutt. They interview him and discover he is completely sober. They let him go and the male returns to his room.

“I’ve been doing this for two years,” Moulden said. “It’s been a great experience, and I will definitely miss working around here and the people I work with.”