'Wrong job if you don’t like kids’

ECISD Sgt. Bob Greer roams the almost empty halls of Bonham Junior High, looking for kids skipping class or any new graffiti on bathroom stalls.

And that’s just a couple of his duties as a campus police officer.

“Naturally we get here, we monitor the students and traffic around the schools: make sure they get in safely, monitor the school inside and out,” Greer said. “You’d be surprised what kind of people these schools seem to draw.”

There are currently 27 Ector County Independent School District campus officers, with at least one at each junior high and two at the high school level.

Ector Junior High has an extra officer simply because of its size, ECISD Chief of Police Brian Moersch said.

“(Officers’) general responsibility is to patrol the schools, especially when there’s a class change and lunch periods,” Moersch said.

But Moersch said officers do much more than just patrol the campuses.

Campus officers are also involved in gang and drug resistance programs that are taught to the students at the junior high level.

“It’s trying to teach them what they need to do to stay out of trouble — what to do in certain situation they might find themselves is,” Moersch said.

One thing that helps officers maintain control in a school setting is the fact that all of the officers already have some type of background in law enforcement.

The most recent hires were two former Odessa police detectives and a Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission lieutenant.

“Campus cops already have the basic knowledge of how to enforce the law,” Master Sgt. Leslie Alexander said. “All we have to do is show them how to do paper flow and basically the differences in the kind of policing.”

It also helps that all campus police officers have the same authority as Odessa police officers.

“We have all the same police powers and municipality — we have full arrest authority,” Alexander said. “We can stop any car traveling down the street. We can arrest anyone at anytime.”

But that doesn’t necessarily mean campus cops are out looking for traffic violations while they’re at work.

“The campus and the students are our main focus,” Alexander said. “We’re not going to go out seeking traffic tickets.”

Greer pointed out that patrolling a school is sometimes similar to patrolling the streets.

“It’s the same thing you see out there — the assaults, the drugs, the fights.”

Alexander said campus officers take more of a “proactive” approach at policing.

“Juveniles are different from adults,” she said. “They know that.”

In fact, many times relationships are built between students and campus officers.

Recently, while in the lunchroom at Bonham, an 11-year-old congenially approached Greer for a little help — help getting his Gatorade bottle open.

“You have to have some type of likability,” Greer said. “This is the wrong job if you don’t like kids.”

OA staff writer Michael Castellon contributed to this report.