University President Michael Lovell signed an agreement to officially establish a Marquette University Police Department, effective May 1.
Lovell emailed a statement with the information to faculty, staff and students Friday afternoon. He said he recently signed the agreement with the State of Wisconsin’s Department of Justice and Attorney General Brad Schimel. The Department of Public Safety Chief Paul Mascari will be sworn in May 1 and will swear in 19 other DPS officers later that day.
“The transition to the Marquette University Police Department will occur over the summer to accommodate the necessary officer training and certification requirements,” Lovell said in the statement. “The new department will take a phased training approach to convert the university’s public safety officers to fully commissioned police officers.”
Lovell said there should be around 35 commissioned officers trained by the start of the 2015-’16 school year.
“I encourage you to read more on the intensive professional and mission-oriented training each of our officers will receive in the official university news release, which will be posted to marquette.edu shortly,” Lovell said in the statement.
The statement comes after Lovell’s Jan. 29 State of the University Address where he announced the choice to commission DPS to become a police force. The option for DPS to be a police force opened up last April when Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill into law giving Marquette the choice to commission.
“We can arrest the individuals, we can detain them, and actually track cars and things we can’t do now,” Lovell said on Jan. 29.
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