A student at Florida Atlantic University was shot in the shoulder by a female campus safety officer as the student charged her last week, according to insidehighered.com.
Zachary Carroll went out of control following a dormitory fight. He smashed a car window, spit on an officer and then rushed at Officer Mary Douglas, according to both witness statements and police reports. Douglas, like all Florida Atlantic officers, is also a certified state policewoman.
When Carroll, who is six feet tall and 300 pounds, charged toward Douglas, witnesses said she feared for her life and was left with no other option but to fire her weapon. Carroll was listed in fair condition as of the end of last week. This is the first shooting at Florida Atlantic since its opening 40 years ago, according to highered.com.
The incident sparked a widespread controversy to whether campus safety officers should be armed with handguns. In 1995 - the most recent statistics available - from the U.S Bureau of Justice, 64 percent of colleges surveyed did have armed officers.
According to media contact Matt Lindsay, George Washington University public safety officers do not carry guns.
According to Sergeant Maurice Carter of AU Public Safety, AU officers do not carry firearms and the decision not to carry firearms is a Public Safety decision supported by the AU administration.
"We do not carry firearms because once the potential for lethal force is raised, you raise the potential for violence all around," Carter said.
When dealing with students who have become unruly to the point of becoming a danger to themselves or others, it is handled on campus by Public Safety. If a crime has been committed, Public Safety works in conjunction with the Metro Police Department so they can prosecute through D.C. courts, according to Carter.
According to Georgetown's newspaper, The Hoya, four students in two separate incidents have been mugged recently in Georgetown, including one student who was shot in the arm during the robbery.
On campuses with more than 20,000 students, armed officers rose to 90 percent, and on campuses with less than 5,000 students, 42 percent armed their officers. Public institutions were twice as likely to arm their officers as private colleges of comparable sizes - 92 percent to 45 percent. Of campuses with armed officers, three quarters chose to give their officers some type of semi-automatic pistol to carry.
Harley Conner, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, supported the officer's decision to shoot Carroll, but did not support giving guns to AU Public Safety.
"I'd say that they should have some sort of high-tech neutralizing weapons instead of firearms," Conner said.
