Better hiring. Better training. Better leadership.

Those are the top recommendations from a consultant’s report released this week aimed at completely shifting the public safety mission at Central Oregon Community College, where a young woman was raped and murdered in 2016 by a campus police officer.

Reforming campus police has been a major initiative of COCC President Laurie Chesley since she took office in 2019.

Last year, she suspended the Campus Public Safety Department and hired a private security firm to take over after discovering training materials that promoted a “cop-like” attitude at COCC. She wanted to review operations at the department before moving forward.

The 40-page report, prepared by campus police consultant Jim Ferraris, suggests ways the school can complete a shift from a law enforcement mission to one of customer service and safety and security. The idea is to reform the department so its officers can again patrol the campus, although with a different mission.

Proposed changes begin with the verbal. The term “chief” should be replaced with the less-militaristic “director,” and the word “public” should be dropped from “Campus Public Safety Department,” the report states.

“Public’ was a descriptor that many stakeholders believed was unnecessary because the purpose and function of the department is to keep the campus safe and secure, as opposed to areas off-campus, which are the responsibility of local law enforcement,” the report states.

The report’s main goal was to examine compliance with Kaylee’s Law, which honors the student murdered at COCC in 2016.

Kaylee’s Law, passed by the Oregon Legislature in 2019, was created to “de-police” campus safety departments. Oregon State University and Portland State University have official police departments, staffed by sworn officers. The rest of the state’s higher education institutions provide a variety of public safety services on their campuses.

Sawyer’s name still reverberates at COCC. She was 23 in 2016 when she was picked up on a late-night walk by campus safety officer Edwin Lara, driving a campus police SUV that resembled a real police vehicle.

Lara took Sawyer to a secluded lot on campus and beat her to death after sexually abusing her. He was arrested following a cross-state run from the law, and ultimately sentenced to life in prison.

The judge at Lara’s sentencing said the case was shocking for the fact Lara abused his trust position as a law enforcement officer and employed the tools of his profession — the back-seat cage, doors that don’t open from the inside — to commit his crimes.

Ferraris has 43 years of experience at Oregon police agencies, including spells as a precinct captain and head of investigations for the Portland Police Bureau.

“At this time, this is the direction the college wants to go,” he said. “I don’t think it has anything to do with defund police or the movement to change policing. It has a lot to do with the expectations of the COCC community. What I heard numerous times was, COCC does not have a campus police department. It has a campus safety department.”

There is not yet an estimate for how much it will cost to operate a staffed-up campus safety department.

“There’s no timeline, but Dr. Chesley is committed to doing this promptly and would commit resources to it,” said COCC spokeswoman Jenn Kovitz.

The school currently employs one public safety officer. Before hiring new campus safety employees, the school will first hire a campus safety director, Kovitz said.

Finding good people who buy into the new message might be difficult, as law enforcement agencies in Oregon report hiring difficulties. The Bend Police Department is unable to staff a campus resource officer position at COCC, according to the report.

In 2019 and 2020, 357 on-campus incidents were reported to Bend Police. Of those, 22 originated from 911 calls. The rest either began as officer-initiated calls or nonemergency calls for service. Theft and criminal mischief were the most common type of call. Five sex crimes were reported in that time. Four calls related to a suicidal subject.

The current uniform of COCC campus safety officers was deemed acceptable under Kaylee’s Law: a blue polo shirt and a high-visibility vest. Officers are to carry their identification cards, portable radios, first-aid kits, smartphones and the narcotic overdose treatment Naloxone.

Among highlights from the report:

• COCC stakeholders suggested officers patrol on bicycles, but the main campus in Bend was deemed too hilly for bike patrols to be considered effective.

• Campus safety vehicles are now being outfitted with GPS systems.

• COCC was advised to install cameras to capture action within campus safety vehicles.

One matter yet to be determined is the use of pepper spray. Though the report recommends officers use pepper spray in “extreme” circumstances, like controlling a vicious dog, it suggests college officials develop a policy controlling the use of pepper spray by safety officers.