Eastern Michigan University’s Interim Chief of Police Lt. Robert Heighes offered The Eastern Echo the opportunity for a reporter to ride along on patrol with some of his officers, as part of the Department of Public Safety’s commitment to transparency and building student relations.
The evening began at 5 p.m. on Jan. 27, at DPS headquarters in the office of shift supervisor Sgt. Mathias Buckson, who has spent his entire 25 years in law enforcement working for EMU DPS.
Buckson grew up in Detroit, but moved to Southfield his junior year and graduated from Southfield High School, after which he earned a B.S. from EMU and attended the police academy at Michigan State University in Lansing.
“I had a couple of other job offers and I chose Eastern. I chose to stay here,” Buckson said.
He added that DPS officers are qualified to work as police officers anywhere in the state, are sworn in with the City of Ypsilanti and can respond to calls within the city limits when assistance is requested.
Buckson said DPS officers usually try to “freeze” a situation when responding to incidents off campus, and if appropriate, hand the case over to Ypsilanti Police.
We left Buckson’s office around 6 p.m. and began patrolling the campus in his SUV, designated car 407.
Buckson provided a tour of the old DPS headquarters, on the bottom floor of the parking structure near Bowen Field House, to illustrate the many differences between the two buildings. It was immediately obvious how much smaller the old building is, even with the lack of furniture. The building housed EMU’s Parking Department as well.
Buckson credits former Police Chief Greg O’Dell with increasing campus safety by hiring additional officers, obtaining new rifles and long guns and building relationships with students.
“I’m not sure what Chief O’Dell accomplished in isolation to someone else, but these things occurred while he was here,” Buckson said. “I mean there’s always that thought out there, ‘We need more officers. We need more this.’ But he got it done, you know what I mean, and refused to be talked out of not getting it done. So that’s what I lost.”
Buckson is referring to the loss of former Police Chief Greg O’Dell, who suffered from depres-sion and took his own life Dec. 23, at which time, EMU President Susan Martin named Lt. Bob Heighes as the interim chief of police.
While Buckson said he felt the old DPS headquarters was small and the department had out-grown it, he was more concerned about being understaffed at the time and wasn’t really excited about the prospect of a new building.
“I’m a people person. My goal is to [go to the station] and do reports. [When] I do a report all I need is a little space and I’m going back out there. I want to be out among the people,” he said.
But on Sep. 10, 2009, when the renovations were done and the DPS moved into its current 10,600 square-foot headquarters, formerly the Hoyt Conference Center, Buckson had a change of heart.
“I was like, ‘My goodness chief, this is great.’” Buckson said.
“I didn’t believe that I would get that excited over a facility. There’s just something about the pride of walking into a state-of-the-art police department that looks like a police department. It really did make a difference and I was surprised at that.”
During the Sept. 22, 2009 ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new DPS headquarters, President Martin said the former headquarters was not a sustainable area, and now the DPS has a modern facility with updated technology.
At the ceremony, former Police Chief O’Dell thanked Martin and the Board of Regents for completing the $3.9 million renovation project despite hard economic times.
“It’s greatly improved the working conditions of police officers,” O’Dell said to the gathered crowd “It is now customer friendly. Today, we will show you a police department you can really be proud of.”
