Oakton Community College arming campus police this fall

They carry batons, wear badges, make arrests, protect and serve.

But for the first time this fall, Oakton Community College's campus police will carry guns.

Arming Oakton's "peace" officers is part of an overhaul of the college's security measures. Oakton's college board of trustees voted in January to arm the 11 sworn officers between the Des Plaines and Skokie campuses.

A growing number of suburban community colleges have chosen to arm their police, including the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Elgin Community College and Harper College in Palatine. Many colleges beefed up security in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University shootings.

"We're changing with the times basically," Oakton Police Chief Dennis Nolan said. "We're going to allow our officers to be equipped with all the necessary tools to provide the best possible service. Most people won't even know the difference."

Possibly the biggest change for students, faculty and staff is that campus police will begin conducting regular evacuation drills starting this fall.

"Our main objective here after the officers are armed is to comply with the new federal guidelines -- get our staff, faculty, administration and students involved in a practice scenario with evacuation," Nolan said. "Both the state and federal government passed a Campus Security Enhancement Act. We have plans tailor-made for each of our campuses."

Locking down an individual college campus is much harder than at a high school or grade school because of the transient population, Nolan said.

Part of Oakton's roughly $100,000 worth of security enhancements includes a recently installed mass notification system for use in emergencies, new computers, and video cameras focused on the campus parking lots.

"It allows us to hook up to our camera system through the Internet (offering) a real time view of what's going on from a remote location," Nolan said. "It should all be done by August 2010."

Oakton police officers already have begun training with the Skokie Police Department's rapid response team, and will be doing similar training with the Des Plaines Police Department.

"You have to plan for the worst-case scenarios," Nolan said. "And one of the worst-case scenarios is an active shooter, or even a barricaded hostage situation. What we want to do is make sure that if there's only one or two officers available from the responding suburbs, we want to be able to provide the other components for that four-person armed team."

Even though they didn't carry guns, the officers already were qualified to do so. By law, all police officers must undergo about 40 hours of handgun safety training and show proficiency with firearms as part of 410 hours they spend at the police academy.

"We are no different from a municipality in that regard," Nolan said. "We have certain standards we have to meet."

Officers also are required to go through psychological training and pass an annual firearms qualification. Each of the officers has been issued their own bulletproof vests.

The college's security guards and the police department's student employees will not be armed.