SGA Hosts USD Chief of Police Bryant Jackson
On Sept. 19, SGA held their fifth meeting of the year. SGA heard from guest speaker Bryant Jackson, the University Police Department Chief. Jackson spoke to SGA members on various subjects, including the new Everbridge mobile app, The Clery Act and timely warnings sent out for campus safety purposes.
Jackson gave information regarding Everbridge, in which the app has better safety applications and programs than that of the campus’ previous USD Safe app. He mentioned how the app allows students and faculty to quickly gain important or life-saving information, utilize location, audio and video services as well as accessing safety featured services while off campus.
“As one can imagine when it comes to an emergency situation, extra video or audio can be very valuable and even give initial responding officers the ability to try and provide assistance or alert EMS faster depending on specific circumstances, so it’s a really great service to all of our campus community,” Jackson said.
Along with this information, Jackson also educated SGA members on the rules and regulations concerning The Clery Act, in which The Clery Act prohibits the sharing of specific investigative information as a form of both the suspects’ and accused’ parties personal safety while on campus. It is also through this act that students on campus are allowed the notification of crimes committed on campus without the giving away of a specific instance of information.
Jackson further went into specifics on the topic of crimes committed on campus; specifically crimes pertaining to sexual assault on campus. He also spoke to SGA members about sexual assault awareness and the importance of shared information through campus timely warnings.
“I think something important to remember about The Clery Act is that crimes reported don’t necessarily have to be investigated, as crimes can be reported by the victim, a suspect or even a third party such as mandated reporters,” Jackson said.
Jackson continued explaining the role of mandated reporters on campus as well as the importance of investigative privacy.
“There are just about 350 people on campus that are mandated reporters, and according to The Clery Act, any crimes brought to their attention are required to be reported, but they don’t have to include names or specific information, meaning that there are some things that cannot be investigated or shared through timely warnings.” Jackson said. “In some other instances, sharing information is not something that a victim necessarily wants, meaning the victim just wants resources or information to be shared with them on how they can try to move forward.”
Jackson finished off his speech to SGA members by further exemplifying the importance of privacy when it comes to crimes, as well as privacy when it comes to sharing information.
“So as we just looked through, the mainspace of USD sharing different types of warnings, especially for sexual assaults, is that we are trying to share information with the campus community so that others can have that information and take action to protect themselves, while also protecting those within a specific circumstance,” Jackson said.
SGA’s next meeting will be held on Sept. 27 in the Freedom Forum Conference Room in the Al Neuharth Media Center.
