On the beat with campus patrol
If you thought a patrol for campus police was anything like the TV show Cops or the recent Campus PD, then it’s time for a ride-along.
This summer, I took a ride with UMKC Police Officer J. Brooks Kraft, who has been on the force for several years. According to Kraft, each shift is different. “It’s really hit or miss,” he says. And on this day, it was “miss.”
UMKC does have one of the lowest rates of serious crime of any university in the U.S., and nothing crazy happened during my three-hour ride through campus and along Kansas City’s Troost Avenue. Kraft had three calls on his 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. shift. The first was about a car leaking oil by the Spencer chemistry building. Kraft didn’t see the urgency or the necessity for a police response. The next call came at 10:30 a.m. about a couple of vans blocking the loading dock at the Student Union. I know, boring, right?
As we rode, I asked Kraft about the strangest call he’d had. It wasn’t a drug bust or a car accident, but a woman who had locked her kids and herself inside her car. Kraft says the car battery died and the lady panicked, which may have caused her to not think and pull up on the lock. He also told me about the time a man on Troost Avenue broke into a Rockhurst University officer’s personal car and stole a gun. The man sped off in his own vehicle, firing the gun in the air as he went.
The third call came in at 12:02 p.m. and was about a suspicious character asking a woman for change in her office at 4747 Troost Avenue. The man left before Kraft and another patrol car arrived. The afternoon wasn’t a total bust. A bald, shirtless man pushing a shopping cart down Troost Avenue flashed us the peace sign. —Mark Linville