The University of Northern Colorado Police Department is a fully sworn police department that handles all kinds of crime and incidents within the geographical footprint of the UNC campus. It also has an intergovernmental agreement with the Greeley Police Department in the city of Greeley, which gives it additional authority up to a mile from the boundaries of the campus. In a one-on-one interview with Alani Casiano for Bear News, Aaron Carmichael, the Chief of Police at UNC, shared his journey from graduating with a Bachelor’s in Biology to becoming the Chief of Police. He started as a police officer in Arvada for about a year and a half and then moved to Greeley, where he worked for the better part of 20 years and rose through the ranks with different assignments.
Carmichael is proud of the changes the UNC Police Department has been able to buy into. The department has adopted the ten-foot rule, where any officer who encounters a person within ten feet should smile and say hi to them. The department aims to be seen as partners along the students’ journey, and they want to have a relationship with them beyond their uniform. The officers strive to be someone students can ask questions to, see dancing at a halftime show, or even on the disc golf course. Carmichael is proud that the officers take the department’s philosophy to heart and do everything possible to make it a reality.
Overall, Carmichael emphasized the importance of building a positive relationship with the community and being approachable to students. The UNC Police Department aims to create an environment where students feel safe and comfortable while participating in their journey.
You can watch the full interview or read the following interview transcript.
Alani – Hello and welcome to Bear News one on one. I’m your host, Alani Casiano. Today we have a very special guest. We’re speaking with UNC’s Chief of police Aaron Carmichael. Thank you so much for coming in today. Chief Carmichael.
Aaron– Yeah, well, thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Alani- Of course. So first, a little bit to ask you about is can you tell me about what the UNC Police Department does for UNC?
Aaron– Sure. Well, so it’s funny that, you know, I’ve been on campus now for a little over a year and and folks sometimes don’t realize that you would see has its very own police department. We are a fully sworn police department that’s on duty 24 hours a day. And in our our jurisdiction really is is the geographical footprint of the campus. We do have an intergovernmental agreement with a Greeley Police Department in the city of Greeley that gives us additional authority up to a mile from the boundaries of campus. But we are we’re all fully sworn police officers to handle every type of potential crime or incident first responder may need to respond to.
Alani– Right. Well, that’s good to know. Next thing I want to ask is I’m curious, where how did you get to where you are today as the police chief of the UNC PD?
Aaron– Wow. Well, that’s how far back do I want to go it? I did. You know, the typical Van Wilder? It took me seven years to get my four year degree out of college. But once I kind of figured out what I wanted to do with my adult life, you know, police work was something I was always interested in. However, I had graduated with a bachelor’s in biology, so it didn’t fit at all. But, you know, having the four year degree was certainly very helpful. It put me into a preferred candidate pool, helped me to get to the position I wanted to, at least as a police officer, started in Arvada for about a year and a half, then Greeley for the better part of 20 years and just rising through the ranks with different assignments, kind of done it all through the police department. And yeah, about a year ago or a little more a year to go. Now, the opening for the chief of police for the university’s police department came open. And it’s a position that I’ve always wanted to aspire to. I’ve done a lot of stuff over my career to prepare me for that. And yeah, I went through the process that was selected. So here I am as the chief.
Alani– Wow. Well, that’s really interesting to hear about your journey here and to hear that’s not always a straight line, you know, You never know where life will take you. Well, very cool. What are some things that you’re really proud of that UNC PB has done?
Aaron– Well, we are. You know, we’re a community policing police department. Service is really where our heart is. I’m really proud of, you know, the changes that the officers have been able to buy into. You know, one of my one of my big philosophies is the ten foot rule in that anybody that a police officer encounters within ten feet, that officer better be smiling and saying hi to, because that’s the kind of police department we want for the campus, where we want to be seen as partners, you know, along the students journey to to be someone that they, you know, can ask questions with or we’ll see us dance at a halftime show with or, you know, maybe see us on the on the disc golf course and in those moments where they need us for police questions, then we’ll be there for them. But we have that relationship. It’s not just this uniform. It’s been drive around in the car. No, we know that that’s not Aaron or we know that that’s Bobby or that’s Patrick or that’s Rick. We know who the person is to serve the unit. You know, UNC as a police officer. And that’s something very proud of. You know, that’s the department really has taken that to heart. And that is really the kind of officer we’re looking for. And and all the police officers within the UNC PD are doing that. And that’s fantastic.
Alani– Well, I really like hearing that. I like hearing that the UNC PD is dedicated to building a positive relationship with the community. Essentially. Oh, good. I’m interested in knowing more about how you supervised the investigation of all crime types and how being the team leader for the 19th judicial District’s critical Incident Response team was like, Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
Aaron– Well, that that’s a big responsibility. You know, the the 19th District Judicial District’s critical and critical incident response team so much, I can’t even get it out. Right. So it is geared for those incidents in which we want transparency in how this major scene occurred. Most often those are when officers are involved in shootings. So we we we have we’re Greeley UNC PD and all the county agents are members of that critical incident response teams, meaning they have signed on to the intergovernmental agreement and that they place officers or detectives on that team or supervisor on that team to help with, you know, a more objective and transparent investigatory process. So with that, there’s just, you know, with with any major, major incident, there’s a lot that goes on in, you know, you have to be able to rely on the people that are doing the work, the people who are investigating, the people who are, you know, completing the tasks. There’s there’s just a lot too much like any job, You know, when you first start, you know, a little bit about what the job is and how the job is performed. But as you you have years of experience. You learn that there’s nuances, there’s different things you got to complete. There’s other areas of of training or certification or ways to go about it that are really more efficient. And and the same thing is with with police work or investigating a crime or an incident of any kind. You learn that there’s just, you know, other avenues or things we’ve got to do that make the whole process better. And so being able to manage that take, it takes a lot. You know, it, you know, from from the moment that these things occur to throughout the final resolution of of the investigation, there’s just a lot going on. And it’s important that, you know, really it’s important that you have good people in place. And fortunately, I’ve been able to learn from a lot of people because I’m never the smartest person in the room. There’s always people I can learn from. So, yeah, I it’s it was it was it was a big a big responsibility that my was very humbled and and enjoyed doing trying to serve the community.
Alani– Absolutely. I mean it sounds like a big responsibility, but it sounds like a very important, very important job. Right. That’s great to hear that you’ve contributed that to the community for sure. Um, could you explain to me how the UNC PD is involved on campus? I know you touched on it a bit. And what else would you like to see the UNC PD do to continue to be involved with the UNC community?
Aaron– Sure we do. We do a lot. First of all, I want to make sure he understands what UNC PD is. So there are currently 17 full time police officers that are assigned to the university Police Department. We have a dispatching center as well, and within our building we are located in Gray Hall, which is right in the middle of central campus, kind of between Eighth Avenue, 10th Avenue, you know, probably south of south of like Carter and Frazier in north of like Presidents Row of of housing. So right in the middle there, right by Guggenheim Crab Hall and, you know, right there in the middle. So you can find us. And there are somebody there at the front desk 24 hours a day. So our our officers and our dispatchers are there every hour of every day. So there’s always somebody available. You know, the phone number to our dispatching centers, 9703512245. And you know, anybody can call that number at any time for any questions. We’re always there to answer. So with that full time police department, our officers, you know, are busy, you know, patrolling. We have schedules where we want people, our officers, to be in different locations, to be seen and to to to observe and to to be a part of the community. I’m very big on getting officers out of police cars. So even though, you know, we have the ability to drive around campus, I’m much more in tuned and interested in officers getting out of their cars and you can drive by holmes, but why not get out and go in and have lunch with a student or just hang out and say hi to people? And so our officers are strategically place to to not just to do more than just patrol. So they get out of their cars and they’ll do that. We we have, you know, community engagement events where we have the entire list of events for the campus and we actually assign officers to be at those. So we have there’s been moments, I think we’ve surprise and people like, what are you doing here? Well, we saw it was that we saw we had free food, so we came home. Mostly it’s it’s that but we do try to have officers please make appearance at every event that’s on campus. Sometimes we ask them to stay and be a part of it. Sometimes it’s just to stop in and say hello, but we are strategic about that. Now, officers do investigate crimes that occur on campus. Those can be property type crimes or person type crimes. But they also, you know, a large part of their job is following up and doing investigations on cases that arise. So, you know, they do spend time doing that, making phone calls, making arrests if they have to. But mostly me or my philosophy is try to keep everything on campus. So even, you know, in every it’s impossible. You know, let’s let’s do everything we can to refer to student conduct, you know, and see if we can maintain accountability that way rather than issuing a ticket or taking some of the jail. Rather, if we can avoid starting a, you know, a criminal justice process and instead refer that to the inside of the institution, I’d rather do that anyway. But we do a lot of things from day to day. And the nice thing, it’s always something different every day.
Alani– Absolutely. Well, that’s wonderful to hear. I really like hearing about these efforts that you UNC PD makes to connect with the community. You know, going to these different events, getting out of those police cars. Because I agree. I think that’s a good way of making the UNC PD not just seem like a badge or, you know, people in cars that you guys are guys are people. So I like hearing this a lot. So as a police officer, can you tell me how you feel about the motto protect and serve?
Aaron– Sure. It’s cliche. I mean, that’s that has been kind of every you know, every thing you’ve seen on a movie about police. I’m not saying that there’s not relevance to it, but really what I’m what I’m more focused on and this is the speech I remember I just gave it an an hour ago to the two brand new officers we hired that started today. And it goes, this job is not who you are. It’s only what you do. In 50 years. No one will remember that I was here as a police chief for you UNC. But my family, my friends, my faith, you know, those things that make Aaron really who Aaron is. Those those things you remember for a lifetime if I wasn’t there for them. So I try to keep my dignity in things that matter. So when we can do that as police officers, then we take out this portion of our our our self realization or our identity that is that is surrounding being a police officer and put it in a more healthy perspective. This is what we do for work. But really, I’m My name is Aaron. You know, here’s what I like to do. I’m going to be on campus. I’m far less interested in really doing the the legal police work. We’re going to go and investigate it. I’m more interested in how can we how can we hang out with you? So you get to know Aaron, not the chief of police, Aaron Carmichael, but Aaron, that’s what I want. That’s what overall officers that we have. So I think protect and serve is important because that’s a it’s a component of what we do. But I really want officers to first be who they truly are and then leverage those skills is who you truly matter and who you truly are. How do we leverage that into the university and in gaining those relationships? I’m you know, I we’ve done a lot to try to move those pieces into place. You’ll see it on our social media all the time on our Facebook and or Instagram. You’ll see us being goofy and hanging out and taking pictures with students and being at events. And we don’t mind looking silly if it makes everybody laughed and that’s what we want. So really protect and serve as important. But genuineness, authenticity and relationships are more important to me.
Alani– Absolutely. No, that makes a lot of sense. Can you tell me as the police chief, how safe do you feel UNC is?
Aaron– Is he’s extremely safe. And I and I I’m I can say that from like I said, I worked for Greeley the for the better part of 20 years the university. And I don’t know what type of psych psychology study could be done, but we on campus do not see hardly any if any, of the issues that surround us in the city. You know, the university is positioned within an area of the city that’s busy for the police department, for Greeley Police Department. But we have some type of, I don’t know, magical fortress field, I guess, around the campus, because we very rarely, if ever, see anything come on the campus. And we may have an occasional transient, you know, under house person that would come on campus, you know, and we’ll go talk to them and see how they’re doing. And maybe there’s just some resources we can plug them into or get them connected to something. But really, I, I can tell you, I do not get the number of phone calls in the middle of the night being woke up for very serious things like I did with Greeley. You know, you know, the stresses here, the level is so much lower, You know, it just, you know, our crime, our crime data within UNC PD would show that we’re very safe. It’s it’s it’s really the campus. There’s there’s nothing about it. There’s no area of campus that I would be concerned about going to. You know, the university does a ton of investment into, you know you know, safety and and has designed the campus in a way that that really you’re never far out of any observable security camera. It really is extremely safe campus and that’s something that a lot of universities not not every university could say but UNC can obviously brag about it, that we are a very safe place to be.
Alani– Absolutely. Well, that’s great to hear. And that’s very comforting to hear as a student. I remember the first time we spoke to you, you told us that UNC is an island. It is seems that way. Yeah. Just makes me feel safe here. And I hope it makes other people feel safe as well. Yeah. So in your opinion, what are things UNC? Students should be careful with interacting with Greeley. You’re talking about, you know, the crime that’s in Greeley, the distinction between the safety and like the isolation, I guess the seclusion of the campus versus Greeley. So what advice would you give students to protect themselves when they’re in?
Aaron– Greeley Well, you know, with Greeley, really, there is a you know, certainly there are different places in Greeley that that might be, you know, less inviting than others. But overall, even Greeley, you know, during the daytime, you know, there really isn’t this concern that you will fall victim of something just walking down the street. Now, choices make up a lot of that safety. You know, if you put yourself in a position that would invite some some type of of, you know, attention from the wrong crowd and then there’s potential you could be in danger to a certain extent. So, you know, I would say safe choices will keep you 99.99% safe in this city. You know, everybody I can’t I can never say that we would reduce all danger to a zero level. But I’m not worried about you know, I’ve raised my family here. My kids have gone through school here. I don’t have any concerns about the city of Greeley. But certainly, I think if you make choices that place you in a more risky or for risk behavior, then there’s there’s certainly a greater chance you could find yourself in danger. But overall, I think Greeley, you know, is is it’s a it’s within all the rest of the cities as far as average safety. And I don’t have any concerns about it. I live here in town myself.
Alani– Well, that’s good to hear. That is very comforting to hear. Can you tell me a little bit about the crime prevention on campus and what steps the UNC PD takes to prevent crime?
Aaron– We do. We have we do many things. We conduct training, we do educational programing, we do safety patrols, we do bike registrations. We we have a lot of protocols in place that we work for crime safety, We do data analysis, we do environmental analysis as far as the physical structure of a building and how can we improve safety by environmentally designing things in place. You know, we do site analysis, we plan for events. You know, we we do a ton of things related to officers, to campus safety that are just a part of our daily job. So we do try to address things as they come up. You know, last fall we were experiencing as everywhere in the country was, but Colorado, especially was a leading one of the leading states in the country for auto theft. And that that was an issue on campus that we were working to address. And how do we prevent more cars being stolen? We had we had several cars that were taken, but we are officers were then working extra shifts. We put officers in the parking lot specifically and made them you know, their assignment was to be in this parking lot. The university started adding resources to it. They they contracted with a security company to patrol that lot every day, every night, all night long. We started using data and now analysis for what types of cars are being taken. We invested in security cameras. So when it comes to safety, all this is to say that really we explore every avenue. We try to identify the root cause of what the issue is. And then, you know, the university has been very willing and, you know, under, you know, Dr. Feinstein has been, you know, the presence been very, you know, agreeable and frankly has has asked that we continue looking at ways and and he he finds ways to bring resources to to help address the situation. So both the president, the cabinet have both been super supportive of the police department.
Alani– Well, that’s good to hear. What do you feel that the measures were effective in helping to prevent car thefts after that spike in the fall?
Aaron– Absolutely. I think that other places like the city did not, you know, because of the size of city, it didn’t have the same level of ability to address that broad area like we did. You know, our concentrated area was primarily one parking lot on campus. And because we were able to put so much attention there, I think we prevented a lot more thefts. And it could have happened because we had officers and security and cameras and things in place all the time. I think we prevented a lot of crime from happening.
Alani- Good. That’s wonderful here. And so can you tell me what does it mean for an officer to have a liaison? HALL?
Aaron– Well, we have in the past we have assigned officers to neighborhoods. So the residential halls that the students live in, those are grouped together in neighborhoods like Mesa and the Ridge and Arlington. You know what we do with the police department, with the pandemic, it was suspended for the time being. You know, my philosophy is I’d like you know, I’d like every officer to be a liaison to every building. But, you know, it’s something that we’re looking to bring back now that the pandemic is over, which gives us a chance to be a part of the training, you know, the behind closed doors training and some of the things that the residence hall staff do and bringing back a liaison officer is fine. But, you know, with with our schedule and our staffing, we it can be difficult to maintain one person. And this is the primary person to go to Lawrence And every time or that neighborhood every time. So really it may be liaison officers, it may be a group of officers that are assigned to certain neighborhoods. But we do want to we’re always looking for ways to have that engagement be more effective. And instead of kind of trying to be every officer, to be all things to all people, if we can certainly assign a officer or a group of officers to to be that contact point, to be that familiar friendly face, and that might be a smarter way to go. And we’ll certainly look at revisiting that now that the pandemic is over.
Alani– Absolutely. I agree. I think that sounds like a great goal to move towards to help continue to build those community bonds at UNC. So I noticed that there’s a chief’s corner page on the UNC PD website. Can you tell me a bit about that?
Aaron– So the chief’s corner page is it’s really it’s just kind of a collection bin of things that I want to share. It is a it’s a resource that gets you some behind the scenes look as to what’s going on. The police department, it’s it’s an article that I try to publish every 2 to 3 weeks that talks about really what is something that’s going on in the police force right now. And it’s it could be specific as far as you know, this is what we’re dealing with with the auto thefts. It could be more of a generic safety message. Hey, commencements coming up. And as you’re moving on to the next phase of your life, you know, and I tell a lot of dad jokes in there, but yeah, it it’s really just a place for I’m hoping that, you know, the community can hear from me directly on something that’s really a matter or an issue for the police force here right now. And that’s what I try to do every few weeks with that page.
Alani- Absolutely was also a great informational source.
Aaron– I hope. I hope so.
Alani– Can you tell me what the Cleary Act is?
Aaron– The Cleary Act is a it’s that’s an abbreviation or it’s a shortened form of the. Jean Cleary Security. It’s like it’s, it’s a two sentence title, but it’s a federal law that came in place that, that started from. So there was a student at Lehigh University back in the eighties, her name was Jean Cleary and unfortunately she was still the victim of crime and, and she was murdered in her own in her own dorm room. What later would be discovered is at Lehigh University at the time had not disclosed a series of very violent crimes that occurred on their campus just prior to Jean’s death. And had that information been available to the parents. The parents were later lobbying Congress that we want to send our daughter there. Had we known it was just bad. So the federal government’s Congress passed this act. Now, that requires all colleges, universities to comply with reporting non on data for, you know, crime and events that occur on campus. So for us, you know, there is we produce an annual security report which details all of the the data statistics on crimes that have occurred in the past 12 months. We publish a daily crime log which will show everything that has has occurred on campus in the past 48 hours. We also are responsible for issuing timely warnings and emergency notifications. So you will have, you know, if you’ve spent any time on campus or related to the campus, you’ll have seen those come through on your email and on actually network connected computers will be a flashing message on the screen. You know, we’ve issued those at times for, you know, whatever emergency situation is going on, you know, it could be we’d send a timely warning about the auto prowls or auto theft from last year. You know, we may send emergency notification about the weather. I mean, if there’s a tornado warning, it just depends. But part of that Cleary act requires us to warn and notify students and staff that there is danger on or near campus. So that’s that’s the other component of it that we have to comply with. And we have a person on campus who whose job is solely to to handle and deal with Cleary ACT compliance. So she is the clear compliance officer for the university. So she and her position is housed within the police department. At least her office is in our building. She actually will be her her reporting structure is through the Assistant Vice President for Finance and administration, but she works out of the police department, which gives her direct access to us to know exactly what’s happened. And in the reports and it says that we respond to and yeah, so the Cleary Act is it’s a big thing and that was probably our biggest change coming from city policing to campus policing is knowing that you’re getting familiar with that. The Cleary Act and the additional components and requirements of that beyond what a normal city police officer would be doing.
Alani- Absolutely. Well, it sounds like a very important act that changed the way safety is handled on campuses to make college students safer. Right. So the final question I want to ask you is how would you describe the current relationship between the campus and UNC PD?
Aaron– So it’s it’s in a development stage. I think that I’m different. Like I said, I know some police chiefs prefer to view their role as stoic. And, you know, I have a authority on campus and you may address me as chief. I’m not that guy. I think if I’m if I can find a way to make you laugh, I’m going to do that. But that’s much more the way I’m wired. And so I just think it’s every person has their struggles in whatever capacity that is. There really is this life’s hard enough as it is without having to feel like your your police officer is there to judge you for what has happened to you or what you’re going through. That’s not what I want. You know, I want the relationship between the university and the police department to be one that you know our names. You know who we are because we’ve been there and we’ve said, you know, we’ve interact in a positive way. And when we show up, you see the police car, but you don’t have any hesitancy. There isn’t any fear of what we’re going to do. It’s because we’ve been there and you’ve gotten to know us. And when we show up, it’s because, oh, hey, you, you have donuts here. So the cops showed up and it’s it’s one of those things where I want it to be very natural. You see, you would see a police car rolling by and you’re not uneasy at all because in there you know, is is Rachel and you’ve talked to her before and she’s she’s pretty cool. You know, she gave you a ride here or, you know, help jumpstart your car there, you know, or walked you from this building to that building because you didn’t feel safe about going over there. You know, those are the kind of the relationship building that I want to do with the police department. I’m hoping I think we’re getting there, but I’m really looking forward to the day when, you know, we’re just, you know, the police department because they’re the guys and they’re the men and women who are fist bumping in the hallway, coming to eat all your free food and, you know, hanging out with you. They’re the ones you saw the cop do that silly thing during the halftime of the basketball game. You know, they’re the ones that are, you know, throwing a football with, you know, just like, you know, whoever students are hanging out on the lawn by North or, you know, just or just another part of your journey and not a negative part. Just just folks that are trying to help you get through and want to be there for you in any way we can. That’s what I.
Alani Feel. That sounds like a wonderful goal for sure. Well, that’s all my questions for today. I really appreciate you taking the time to come and talk to us today.
Aaron –I appreciate your let me be here. This this has been great.
Alani– Well, good. This has been alani Casiano with Bear News One on One to thank you so much for joining us and we’ll see you next time.
