Though Bowling Green has two separate law enforcement agencies, one for the city and one for the University, they act together much like roommates; they do their own thing a lot of the time, but when one is in need of help, the other is there to back them up.

“For the most part the campus police take care of the campus property and we take care of the off-campus property,” said Lt. Brad Biller of the Bowling Green Police Division. “If we see something happen on campus we can attend to that as long as we make them aware of it and vice versa.”

The campus police have 24 sworn officers and the city police have 41, and because of a mutual aid agreement and that both agencies are governed by the same state laws, both of them are able to enforce the laws throughout the city, whether it is on or off campus.

“We are governed by state law, and as a result of that we have a mutual aid agreement with the University giving us concurrent jurisdiction with them,” Lt. Biller said. “They can enforce traffic laws and criminal laws off campus and we can enforce them on- campus. With this agreement in place it allows both of us to have our back sides covered so to speak.”

Because both agencies are able to enforce laws throughout the community, it might be a bit shocking that they have concurrent jurisdiction.

According to the Director of Public Safety for the University, James Wiegand, students don’t necessarily realize that campus police are sworn officers.

“There’s the misconception that students have where they don’t believe we are real police officers, when in fact we are sworn officers of the law and can enforce all of the ordinances throughout the city,” Wiegand said.

Though both agencies are able to enforce laws outside of their normal jurisdiction, the penalties for the laws they enforce can be handled differently. This has a lot to do with the administrative laws students have to abide by for being a part of the University. If a student is cited for underage consumption of alcohol by a campus officer, often times a letter is sent home to their parents and then the students can be subject to the administrative laws enforced by the University.

If a city officer cites a student for underage consumption they are often times written a ticket and then have to appear in court to get their sentencing.

“Not every incident is the same,” Wiegand said. “There are so many factors that can play a role into how the situation is handled. It is completely up to the judgment of the officer at the time of the incident to decide what needs to be done.”

What students might not know is that even if they get in trouble by the campus, they can still get in trouble by the city police for the same offenses while suffering different penalties.

“The University has administrative rules in place that the students have to abide by,” Lt. Biller said. “Students often ask themselves, ‘can I be punished judicially and administratively for the same thing?’ Yes, you can. We don’t do the punishing, we just do the reporting of those incidences, but often times we report those incidences to the student affairs office and what they select to attend to is their business.”

A common misnomer of the idea of being punished twice for the same offense is that the Double Jeopardy clause says you can’t be, but according to Lt. Biller this really isn’t the same situation.

“I don’t consider it to be Double Jeopardy. I consider it to be Double Jeopardy if you are punished by that judiciary for the same offense,” Lt. Biller said. “One act can constitute a number of offenses. So, if the student is punished judicially having consumed alcohol beverages underage, and then the student is punished administratively by the University for breaking a rule, it is not considered Double Jeopardy. It’s two different systems that appear to attend to the same thing, but it’s two sets of rules that those people find themselves under.”

Because both agencies have concurrent jurisdiction, they work together in many different ways, even in training.

Each agency has different training events and they will invite each other to participate in that event to better help their working relationship.

“When we have a vendor come in to set up a training event, many times we will share those things back and forth,” Lt. Biller said. “I think we have to do this because we do work so frequently together on things.”

The cases they work together on include disturbances at University events as well as disturbances in the downtown area.

“I think it is imperative that we train together with them so we can respond to those types of things correctly,” Lt. Biller said.

Wiegand agrees with Lt. Biller and believes the working relationship between agencies is rather good.

“When they are tied up with things and need assistance we’ll help them out. If we request their assistance they will help us out,” Wiegand said. “From my perspective and I think that they would agree, our working relationship is very good. We try to help each other out in any way we can.”

Because they work so closely together at times or simply because Bowling Green is a college town, both departments agree that the biggest problems they face are because of alcohol.

“There is no question that our biggest problem on campus is alcohol and what it does to individuals,” Wiegand said. “Every year we get new individuals that are right out of high school, and when they get to the University it’s really the first time for many that they have freedom and they are going to experiment. Some experiment well, and some do it not so well.”

Lt. Biller also believes that alcohol is the biggest problem their department faces because it leads to so many different offenses.

“Alcohol related offenses and disorderly conduct offenses are the ones that we face the most, we expend the most resources and deal with,” Lt. Biller said. “The problem with alcohol related offenses is that they overlap so many segments. They start out with simple disorderly conduct, which can go to assaults, which spills over into sexually oriented offenses, trespass and so many other areas just because of how intoxicated they are.”

Even though the campus police and city police are two different agencies, whether they face traffic offenses or criminal offenses they work together in any way they can to keep the city and the University safe for everyone without butting heads with each other.

“I can’t remember a time where we have stepped on each other’s toes,” Lt. Biller said.