Let's Talk UNLV

Announcer
0:00:00
This is a KUNV Studios original program.

Wesley Knight
0:00:04
The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz & More, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:00:20
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode here on Let's Talk. KUNV 91.5 and I have a special guest today. I actually have several special guests from UPD. We have Lieutenant Ryan Willman, we have Officer Darren Franklin, and we have Sergeant Michael Lamb. Hello guys, how are you? How you doing? Doing

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:00:38
really well. Doing great. Thanks for having us. All right, not a problem. I'm happy you'd be here.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:00:42
You know, we had a retreat a couple of weeks ago and the student was so hyped about Officer Franklin, so I figured we'd have you PD here today for the podcast. So as I start all of the shows, I would like to know your origin story. How did you end up here at UNLV? And we can start with Officer Franklin.

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:01:03
Okay, well I actually started out I was with the Department of Public Safety, the DPS Academy. I went into Highway Patrol and for me I was looking around and this seemed to me a better fit. I just love being out with the public. I love communicating with faculty, staff members, and I figured, UNLV PD, this is pretty intriguing. And I came over here, it was about three and a half years ago, and I've been loving it ever since.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:01:32
Excellent, excellent.

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:01:33
an alumni of both College of Southern Nevada and UNLV. And my working career prior to this was all in the construction industry. My dad owns a business in construction, so that was kind of the easy route for me. One of the last projects that I did in construction, I was a project manager. We built a big movie theater. And I kind of had this epiphany that, you know, construction was fun.

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:01:58
I got some good contacts, built some good things, but I didn't really get that sense of fulfillment from that work. I had a lot of friends in law enforcement at the time that were always kind of pitching this as a good career for me. And then incidentally, through that last job that I had in construction, one of my colleagues had a friend who worked at our department and connected us, and then the rest was history

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:02:24
from there. Joined UNLV PD at the time, now University Police Department, and haven't looked back since. Really enjoy working here. Excellent, excellent. Thank you, Lieutenant Wilton. And how did you appear, Officer Lamb, how did you end up here, Sergeant Lamb?

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:02:33
Yeah, so when they talk about law enforcement being a calling, I think it truly was for me.

Sergeant Michael Lamb
0:02:37
It started as a young age. I always used to drive by police officers on traffic stops and always wonder what are they doing over there? It looks so interesting. So I was always intrigued with the job, but as life has it, it took me in different directions. I was actually in the substance abuse and mental health recovery field for about 16 years before becoming a police officer, which actually prepared me quite a bit for this

Sergeant Michael Lamb
0:03:04
position. And I went into it as a second career. I went into police academy at 36, graduated when I was 37 years old, and I've been here for about five years. Wow.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:03:15
Loving it, yeah.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:03:16
Okay, cool, cool.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:03:17
Are you guys all native of Nevada?

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:03:19
Depends on what native is. If it's like 11 years, does that mean native?

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:03:22
Anyone born and raised here?

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:03:26
Not born, been here for 35 years.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:03:29
From what state?

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:03:30
Arizona.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:03:30
Arizona? Close enough.

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:03:32
Nebraska.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:03:33
Nebraska.

Sergeant Michael Lamb
0:03:34
Southern California.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:03:35
SoCal, where in SoCal?

Sergeant Michael Lamb
0:03:35
Yeah, so born and raised in San Fernando Valley. So I was born in Tarzana, lived in Woodland Hills for a long time, family moved me out to Thousand Oaks. But we've been here in the Vegas area for about 10 years almost. Excellent, excellent.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:03:48
So let's dive straight into a few questions here. What security measures, Lieutenant Wilman, are currently in place to ensure students' safety here on campus?

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:03:57
Yeah, that's a great question. Well, one of the things that we do, as you saw, is we on the community outreach team, we try to get as involved as possible throughout the campus with like safety presentations. That's what Officer Franklin, that's how you guys got connected. We've done dozens and dozens of those across all campuses, but here at UNLV specifically. And in those presentations, we always give tips, safety tips to the students and faculty and staff on ways to keep themselves safe.

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:04:33
I would say one of the best things that people here at UNLV have at their disposal is the RebelSafe app, which we're going to talk shamelessly throughout this podcast about. RebelSafe app is a great tool, probably one of the most effective ways to contact UPD if you have an emergency or non-emergency. Emergency alerts can come through that. So RebelSafe app is a huge tool. We also have emergency phones around campus. We have well over 100 emergency phones just across the UNLV campus. It's as simple as you push a button on the front of the phone, it activates a blue light on top of that phone, lets our dispatch know exactly where you're at and it's essentially like calling

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:05:15
911 with a push of a button. In addition to that, if there's an emergency on campus, alerts come through the RevelSafe app, the emergency phones, people's desk lines, like landlines at desks and classrooms, as well as through their their computer monitors as well. In addition to that as well, we also have security cameras all around campus. We have hundreds of cameras across the

Wesley Knight
0:05:41
campus just to provide that sense of security to folks. Wow. So is there

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:05:46
officers monitoring those cameras throughout the campus or? So

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:05:51
because of the vast amount of cameras that we have, it's not feasible to have somebody you know monitoring 24-7, however, each camera that is. However, our dispatchers do have the cameras pulled up in their dispatch center. Again, like I said, there's only so many of them. They only have so many screens and so they can't watch every camera at one time, but they do try to find those areas that are highly populated, that are the busier areas on campus and keep an eye on those

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:06:19
regularly. Okay, excellent. Sergeant Lamb, how does the UNLV Police Department collaborate with local law enforcement agencies? Because I'm sure there are times that something may happen on campus that you need their assistance with, or there may be something happening off campus and they need your assistance. So how does that work, that collaboration?

Sergeant Michael Lamb
0:06:37
Absolutely. So we have in place what are called MOUs. It's Memorandum of Understanding. And we have these with all the local agencies, but most notably around the UNLV area would be Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. And so we work side-by-side with them. We actually monitor their radio channel and vice versa. So if they are on a call near our

Sergeant Michael Lamb
0:06:56
campus that may be just off campus and they request our assistance, we then go provide that assistance for them and vice versa. If we have a call on campus that we require their assistance with, they will come and assist us with that

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:07:08
as well. Excellent, excellent. So let me ask this question to the one of the most popular officers over in UBD here. Since you're always in contact with students here on campus, and like I said, those students really spoke highly of you there.

Sergeant Michael Lamb
0:07:23
You listened to them. I appreciate that. They were awesome.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:07:25
Making them feel like their voice was heard. So what is the crime rate here on campus, and what trends have you noticed in recent years? I think you said you've been here for five years?

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:07:35
About three and a half.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:07:36
About three and a half, okay. So have you noticed any trends or anything at all that you can speak with us about?

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:07:41
You know, it's pretty consistent and a lot of it has to do with, you know, the scooter theft or bicycle theft. You know, that's the big thing. And then that's nationwide, every campus. Yes. Now, we do offer a crime report, which is on our university website.

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:07:59
If people are concerned about, you know, what the crime rate is on campuses, they can access that through our University Police website. And that's done annually. So by the end of this year, we'll have the 2024 one posted. But the main thing we're focusing on right now is a lot of the theft.

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:08:19
And we're trying to encourage the students to register their computers, their scooters, their bicycles. They can register for free through our university headquarters. And just to educate them to make sure that they're being locked up

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:08:37
because there's a lot of buildings that they're putting their bikes and scooters in. And a lot of people from the Midwest, like myself, we're more trusting. You go into a big city and they still have that trust factor. Well, it's day and night.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:08:52
Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:08:53
And with these questions that I'm asking, you know, even though I'm calling, you know, specific names, if you have anything that you want to add to the questions that's being asked, please just jump right in and give us what you want us to know there. So, and I'm just going to ask this one instead of calling a specific name, in general, what procedures are in place for responding to emergencies such as natural disasters, active shooter situations, or medical emergencies?

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:09:17
Yeah, I'll take that. So, our department does have our own Office of Emergency Management that's staffed with a handful of professionals in that office. So, they do a couple of really neat things. They can go into a department here at UNLV if they're having some safety concerns in their specific space and they can kind of work through procedures to help them kind of have like the industry standards as far as procedures go. So that's one thing that we offer. Another thing is if you go to the Office of Emergency Management portal on UPD's website,

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:09:53
if you go to the very bottom under quick links, there's an emergency preparedness guide that kind of talks about fire, evacuating if there's a fire, if there's a flood, gas leak, earthquake. It gives the protocols for all of those. It's long, it's like 92 pages, so yeah definitely sit down before you read that, but it's a really good resource to answer a lot of those questions. In addition to that, we do offer safety presentations specific to emergency preparedness, and so that's something that can be requested through our website.

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:10:28
And then like I said, shamelessly plugging the RebelSafe app. If there were any type of emergency, UPD would be giving direction to the campus on how to respond appropriately through that RebelSafe

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:10:38
app as well. Okay, excellent. You know, during my time at San Diego State, I was up for 13 years before coming here and I was a professor in the classroom, so I would reach out to different departments and have them come in and actually speak to specific classes about whatever the topic would be. Like with SDPD on campus, I would have them come and talk about campus safety there as well. So do you guys do anything like that here on campus when you go to a professor's class

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:11:06
to speak about certain things?

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:11:08
Absolutely. Lieutenant Wilman has got me involved in this too and also Sergeant Lamb. Yeah, Kappa safety presentations. Like he mentioned, we do active assailant presentations. And I also actually started, it was about three years ago, and a sorority, I believe it was Gamma Phi Beta,

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:11:26
they reached out and they asked if we could do like an alcohol drug safety presentation. And I would love to do that. I mean, that's kind of what I've been training for. I'm a DRE expert, SFST instructor, and I said absolutely. And it was huge. So three years now running, they've asked me back every year

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:11:47
and I would love to get involved with other sororities and even fraternities if they would like to reach out to us so I could do the alcohol and drug safety presentation.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:11:59
Wow, I'm glad to know that. See, I'm sitting here learning something new in this as well. I'm in fraternity as well. I'm part of the Alpha Phaethol Fraternity Incorporated. And I have my college brothers here that are on campus taking massage. So I would definitely be plugging this

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:12:12
and letting them know, hey, call Officer Franklin over for this. So you'll be getting a call pretty soon or email.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:12:18
Trust me.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:12:19
So let's move on to patrol and visibility. How often are patrols conducted around the campus, particularly in high traffic areas as well.

Sergeant Michael Lamb
0:12:29
We have officers here 24-7, 365, so we're a fully intact police department with our own dispatch center. I always like to tell people we are visible, we're approachable, and we're always nearby. We really pride ourselves on being a community-oriented police department that way and being accessible to the campus population when they need us.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:12:51
Yeah, that's excellent. You know, that's one thing that I can say that I've noticed being here on this campus versus my old institution that I was at. Officers here are more approachable. Even when they're, you know, walking through, let's say, the Student Union, I usually just walk up to one and just start talking and we'll have just a normal conversation. So that's one of the things that I can say that's really positive about UPD is the officers in UPD are very approachable.

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:13:16
And we're family, you know, it's like we're not here to, you know, hey, I'm watching you, you know, we're here to be like, look, if you need us, we're here for you, reach out to us. The more we make them feel more comfortable with us, the more likely they're gonna come over and say,

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:13:31
hey, officer, I have an issue. And then we can speak with them about it.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:13:34
Yeah, yeah, it's really important to foster, and I think you're talking about that sense of belonging here on campus. So yeah that's always a good thing. So are there designated high-security zones or area where students can feel safest during the late hours at night? I know sometimes you know students like when I was an undergrad my last class was at 950 at night so it'd be pretty dark on campus when I'm

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:13:57
walking. So are there designated high-security zones an area where students can feel safest during late hours?

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:14:03
So I would say, you know, in the late hours some of the busier buildings are going to be Student Union, the library, right, but there are classes kind of across campus. What I would say is definitely try to stick to those main inner sidewalks. That's where a lot of our emergency phones are located. And so and those are the well-lit areas. So that's what I would recommend is stay to those areas that are well-lit, be familiar with where

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:14:31
those emergency phones are located. If you have a specific building that you go to and you park in a specific parking lot, be familiar with emergency phones along that route and try to stay in those well-lit areas. We do offer security escorts

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:14:47
as part of our patrol approach. And so you can request that through the Rebel Safe app, plugging that again. And then one of our student cadets will come and do, it's like a walking escort. Will it walk with you from your class to your car,

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:15:01
your car to your class or to your dorm? So that's an option that we offer to the folks here on campus. Excellent, excellent.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:15:08
And that kind of leads into the next question that I had. You know, what resources does the department provide to educate students about personal safety and crime provision? So I guess one of those crime provision methods would be that escort. So is there anything that you know you could add to that particular question?

Sergeant Michael Lamb
0:15:22
Certainly the safety and crime prevention presentations that we give as well as the active assailant presentations give a lot of really valuable information. And really what it does is it kind of opens up and facilitates that conversation between the police officers and the students. What we like to say is, yes, we're always here, but we can't be everywhere at once. So we really like to empower the student body to come up with kind of like their own plan

Sergeant Michael Lamb
0:15:47
and their own mindset of what would I do if. And that really can kind of help open up that conversation and have them really kind of empower themselves and also work in collaboration with us as a police department.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:16:00
Okay. There was something mentioned earlier about run-hide-fight. So how does that work within what you just said? Whether it's coming from the car on a particular route to your classroom. So does that tie in with?

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:16:15
Yeah. So the run-hide-fight model, that's a model that was established by the Department of Homeland Security as a response protocol for active assailant incidents. And so if there's an activist assailant in a particular building or on a campus or in any area, the model that they have, they try to keep it as safe or as simple rather as possible. And it is simply run if safe, hide if you're not able to run

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:16:40
and then fight as a last resort. One of the biggest themes of that training, the activist assailant training that we do is situational awareness. So yeah, it definitely ties into your day-to-day safety. It's just being aware of your surroundings, being

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:16:54
aware of who's around you, what's going on around you. I'm holding up a phone right now for the folks that can't see, but I think often a lot of us are guilty of just being like tied in to our phones and not being aware of what's going on around us. And that's one of the that's one of the easiest things that we can do is just put your phone away when you're walking to class or walking to your car and be aware of your surroundings. And that's a huge safety tip.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:17:17
Yeah, that's one of the things that I had to break myself on. During the day, I'm okay with walking out of, I don't know, Costco or Sam's Club and being on my phone. But at night, I'm making a point at night to not be on my phone.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:17:29
If I'm walking out of a store, I want to make sure that I'm getting to my car safely, you know, seeing what's around me. So that's one of the things. And I know it's tough for students to not look at their phone for at least 10 seconds

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:17:41
when they're coming out of class, but that's one of those things that you got to discipline yourself on. So, are there any free self-defense or safety workshops offered to students at all?

Sergeant Michael Lamb
0:17:52
Yeah, we do offer something called Jane Jitsu. So it's tied into the jiu-jitsu martial art, and it's geared towards women and female students on campus. Again, it teaches situational awareness, vigilance, but also techniques that can help them escape from a potential attack. So that is something that we offer. We're also currently trying to work in collaboration with some local martial arts instructors to bring them on board and kind of provide a larger scale of self-defense classes to the student population

Sergeant Michael Lamb
0:18:31
because since December 6th, the increase in demand, I would say, not only for the presentations but also self-defense training has gone exponentially up.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:18:41
Okay, so this is something that students would have to email you about or a group or an organization would have to email you about to actually get this GI Jane Jiu-Jitsu class?

Sergeant Michael Lamb
0:18:52
Yes, so that if they go to the police services website, it'll be on there under community engagement. And they can, anything that we do will be posted on there as well as through our social media accounts. And I believe UNLV today as well will announce that when there are availabilities.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:19:09
Okay, excellent, excellent. So how does the department notify students and staff about ongoing incidents or threats here on campus?

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:19:17
Well, going back to the Rebel Safe app, that's the main one. You know, the incident that occurred last year, it was, you know, anybody that had the app, it was instant, you know, with the act of assailant on campus. But that's the main thing. I want everybody to sign up for the Rebel Safe app, whether it's faculty, students, people that are in clubs, it doesn't matter, but just sign up for it because that's the direct line of contact is the RebelSafe app.

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:19:46
And also we can send out emails and if people have questions, they can contact us and I can give you the number over the phone. It's 702-895-5575. That's our direct line through our headquarters. If they have any concerns or wanna know what's going on,

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:20:04
that they'll be able to contact that number and we can inform them what's going on too.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:20:08
Excellent. Excellent. So as the listening audience have heard about 10 times now, make sure you download that Rebelsafe app so that you can be updated. What roles do the technologies such as surveillance cameras and emergency apps play in campus safety? And again, I know this is going to lead back to the app. So anything we can add to that at all?

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:20:31
Yeah, yeah. So like you said, I think that's an easy transition back to that RebelSafe app. UNLV has done a great job, and, you know, they've been sending out, President Whitfield's been sending out periodic Rebel recovery emails. In his most recent email, he talked about increasing surveillance cameras, increasing those emergency phones that we've talked about.

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:20:54
UNLV has invested tremendously and shown their dedication to the safety of the campus through their investment of these programs, the security cameras. Those are a huge tool for us as a police department when something happens on campus. Even as something as simple as a theft,

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:21:12
our detectives are able to go back and review those cameras and try to find closure and a resolution for that victim. So, yeah, we rely heavily on that technology and we're just grateful that UNLV has invested in those safety measures. Yeah, well, we've also implemented a lot more eyes and ears. Obviously as an agency, we're trying to increase our squads and the people. And we also have, I don't know if everybody has noticed,

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:21:43
but we also have the yellow shirt security on campus.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:21:46
Oh yes, definitely.

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:21:46
We've also implemented community service officers and also the student cadet program. And they are there to help us out. I mean, there's at least 100 buildings on this campus alone where one squad of officers isn't gonna be able to hit all these.

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:22:03
Having these implemented, there are just a lot more eyes and ears. If they see something suspicious, they'll give us a call and then we'll react to it.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:22:10
Yeah. You know, that's one thing that I've noticed in my department meetings that we have once a week is usually at some point, the director is always going to say, if you see something, you say something. So I've noticed that almost every department meeting.

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:22:24
And we take everything seriously. Even if a student says I think this person is following me, I don't know who this is, we're going to take it seriously. We're going to address it and figure out is this just a coincidence or is this somebody that's actually you know following a student. Okay. Are there

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:22:40
programs or initiatives aimed at addressing issues like death, assault, substance abuse on campus? Which I think we may have touched some of that already, but if we could just mention those again.

Sergeant Michael Lamb
0:22:51
Yeah, let me, I'll just plug the CAPS program here, Student Counseling and Psychological Services in the Rec and Wellness Center. Great valuable resource. They have individual therapy, group therapy, if you're struggling with alcohol or drug addiction. Just general mental health as well.

Sergeant Michael Lamb
0:23:08
We have really great staff there who are really dedicated to the student population. And again, Rebel Safe App has a lot of resources in there that you can be tied into on campus.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:23:20
Excellent, excellent. I'm glad you said that, because literally I was just telling our lieutenant women walking here, prior to coming for the podcast just now, I was over in CAPS, because I have a student that was in a mental health crisis and suicide crisis as well.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:23:34
So I was able to walk over to CAPS with this particular student, make sure that student is taken care of while I come here and do this, so when I leave this, I go right back to CAPS and just check on them, because I want the student to know that,

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:23:45
you know, you're not in this by yourself, I'm here with you. So let's talk about some community engagement. How does the department build relationships with the student body to promote and trust corporations also?

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:23:56
How does that build, that sense of belonging, how is that built?

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:24:01
Well, any activities that goes on in campus, we try to be part of, obviously, whether it's donuts with a cop or getting beat up in a volleyball tournament. Or just being involved with student activity or faculty activity.

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:24:18
That's the key to just building more camaraderie and building the trust with the students and faculty. So anything that goes on, we try to be part of, or even in briefing, hey, this is what's going on on campus, we need extra patrols at these buildings for today. Even if it's not something where they reached out to us,

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:24:38
but we know what's going on, we'll try to make it a point to get over to those buildings and just be visual.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:24:46
Excellent, excellent.

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:24:47
If I could quickly add to that. So our interim chief, Arnold Vasquez, one of his key tenets is community outreach. He's passionate about it. And I'm right there with him that wholeheartedly that is that link that connects us, the police department to the community. And since he's been here to piggyback off what Officer Franklin was saying, we've not

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:25:10
in events such as a volleyball tournament that we were just completely annihilated in. But we participated in it, and the feedback that we got from those folks was, some of these people that have worked here for 10, 15 years have never seen our department

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:25:27
participate in some of those events. So we definitely turned a new page as far as how involved we're going to be in the campus community. So you can see a lot more of us. We've participated in campus 5Ks and different events.

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:25:42
And you're going to see that increase as time goes on.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:25:45
Yeah, that's excellent. You know, even competing in something like that, like a volleyball tournament, and you guys just being there, I don't think there's ever a loss, because the thing is, like you just said, you have people that are saying, oh, I've

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:25:57
never seen you guys out here before. So you get the win by actually being there. They see you there. They see you in a different light other than just seeing you driving or walking around campus as an officer.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:26:07
They see that you're human, they see that, oh, he played volleyball just like I do. Yeah, that's one of the key things here. We just recently had a aromatherapy event over in SDP that turned out so well that I piggybacked off that and brought them to Stonewall Suites.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:26:24
And it went so well there. And I think that would be a great opportunity where, and the student was asking if I could do it again before the end of the semester. And I was like, no, not gonna do it that quick. Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:26:35
We'll do it in spring. But I think that would be a great opportunity also to have, you know, if there's some offices available to come over, do the aromatherapy with the students, just building your own little infuser scent thing. But that would be an opportunity so that they can see you in a different light

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:26:49
other than just seeing you driving a truck or walking around campus, blah, blah, blah. So those are excellent. And food is always provided. So you get free lunch also.

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:27:00
So it's always a draw for us.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:27:02
I'll say. So what steps are taken to ensure that international students and other diverse groups feel safe and supported on campus? And when I say other diverse groups, like African-American students, our Stonewall Suites students.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:27:15
So what's being done or what's implemented or measures are being taken to make sure? And the international students are being safe.

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:27:25
Yeah, yeah. So one thing that I love about working here at UNLV is UNLV prides itself as being one of the most diverse universities in the nation, right? And our department definitely models that in our hiring process, in a lot of the trainings that are mandated for our department. So our department is consistent of a very diverse

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:27:49
group of individuals from our police officers to our administrative personnel. And I think that's probably one of the most efficient ways that you can connect with the community on a diversity level is modeling kind of the community, right? Exactly. And so we've taken that to heart and the way that we hire models that

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:28:14
and I've seen the benefit from it firsthand out in the field. So I'd say that's probably the number one thing that we're doing to address that.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:28:22
Excellent, excellent. It's always important, I think, when students can see themselves in a particular situation, just like when I taught at San Diego State, I made sure that all of my students were reflected in the books that was chosen by the authors. So they were able to see themselves that and that.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:28:38
So here on campus, I've noticed also there are African-American officers here on campus as well. And I see our black students talking with those officers also, because I know on my old campus and even just out in public in general, there are some African Americans that have issues with just the police being around, with just the word the police.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:28:56
But I see here on campus that they gravitate to these officers, they laughing and talking with them outside of Starbucks and ASU. So I think that sense of belonging and them feeling comfortable enough to actually talk with these officers

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:29:09
says a lot about the department as well. I got nothing but positive feedback from any student when I'm asking them about UPD or if they're commenting about UPD it's always positive. So I think that's a great thing

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:29:20
that you guys are doing. And just sitting down with them too. I mean, Sammy, I was with you with that diversity group and their concerns were their safety in the dorms. And the main thing was I want to hear, I mean I had the whole script but I threw it aside. I said I want to hear what your concerns are. And just listening to them like this is what we need and saying, okay, well, I'm going to take this to Lieutenant Wilman. We're going to see if we can address this. We are going to increase more traffic, you know, inside the dorms. And that right there,

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:29:52
I think just kind of opened up their eyes and be like, wow, thank you. I mean, because they just

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:29:57
want to be heard. They don't feel safe sometimes. Yeah, exactly. And that's one of the things too, because I did notice that Once you left and the students was talking and one of the one of the comments one student make the comment He actually sat there and actually looked at looked us in the face and listen He didn't like roll his eyes or turn his head other ways or said his body language Definitely there supporting and listening to us. So that's one of the things that students were saying as well and you've got nothing but high praise from those students. And I really appreciate the way that you came in,

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:30:29
the way that you handled students, the way that you presented yourself, the way that you just fit right in. You sat at the table with us and with the students. So it was just great. And the students appreciated it.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:30:38
I think that's what it should be. Yeah, absolutely. It's been great. So if you could offer advice to students here on campus, what advice, and I'm gonna go around the table because we're coming to an end here,

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:30:49
what advice would you offer students on campus?

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:30:52
Bring your questions to us. Don't be afraid to come up to us and ask questions if they have concerns. But that's the main thing is be open with us and we're here to help them out, students or faculty. But don't be afraid to come up to us and say, hey, I have a question about this and if I don't know the answer, I can go to Lieutenant Wilmore,

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:31:16
or I can go to Sergeant Lamb and say, hey, this is a good question, what can we do about this? But we'll get the answer. Excellent. Yeah, I would say if there's ever opportunities to further your understanding or education in terms of your personal safety, take advantage of it. I've got to give credit where credit's due. Sergeant Lamb, we've done dozens of safety presentations across UNLV and Sergeant Lamb has single-handedly done almost all of those on his own. However, Officer Franklin, as you guys were introduced, assists with

Lieutenant Ryan Willman
0:31:50
those as well. They both do an incredible job, but that's a way for people to get tools to help make sure that they're staying safe. And so, what I would say to students or faculty and staff is if you see opportunities to attend a safety presentation or to watch a video that maybe we put out, just take the time to participate in that. You can never not invest enough in your safety, right? So just always try to invest in your safety.

Sergeant Michael Lamb
0:32:16
Absolutely. Yeah, some of the feedback that I get from some of the safety presentations is that some of the students hesitate to contact us. And what I want to say is never hesitate to contact us. You're never bothering us. We are truly here for you, the students, the faculty, for your protection, for your safety, and so that you can maintain just a sense of peace while you're on our campus. So we're here for you.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:32:40
Thank you so much. Thank you so much, UPD. Lieutenant Bowman, Officer Franklin, and Sergeant Lamb, thank you so very much for coming to us here on the podcast, and we look forward to having you back.

Officer Franklin
0:32:50
Absolutely.

Sergeant Michael Lamb
0:32:51
Thank you for having us.

Dr. Sammie Scales
0:32:52
And that's a wrap.

Outro
0:32:53
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Transcribed with Cockatoo