NEAR WEST SIDE — The police union that accused UIC of mismanaging security for the canceled Donald Trump rally is calling attention to what it says is a dangerously low number of officers on campus at times, an issue it first raised eight months ago.
In a three-page letter sent last August, the Metropolitan Alliance of Police 381, which represents University of Illinois at Chicago officers, said UIC Police Chief Kevin Booker limited the number of officers available during certain shifts. That included at least two shifts last summer when there were as few as two officers patrolling the sprawling campus that includes dozens of blocks on the Near West Side, University Village and Illinois Medical District. The school has more than 29,000 students and 8,000 full-time employees.
The union said having two officers is an "incomprehensible and dangerously low new number" compared to the minimum staff of three units and four officers for the last 10 years, plus additional staff that are stationed at the University of Illinois Hospital and an urgent care clinic.
RELATED: UIC BOTCHED SECURITY FOR TRUMP RALLY, UNION CLAIMS
"With only two officers available to respond to calls for service, it is impossible for us to provide the level of service, assistance and support that the UIC community has grown accustomed to," said the letter to university Chancellor Michael Amiridis and Vice Chancellor of Administrative Services Mark Donovan.
"The security that our faculty and staff and students are used to feeling will be no more as it may be several days (maybe weeks) between them seeing officers. With only two officers working, we are surrendering our campus to the criminal element who will benefit from the a significant increase in the amount of time it takes before the first police officer will arrive on the scene."
The letter said that when the union met with Booker, who started at UIC in January 2015, he blamed funding cuts.
"What we find to be the most abhorrent part of it all is that Chief Booker stated that he was doing this to save money," the letter stated.
Union board director Ray Violetto did not respond to requests for comment, but a police source said the union's concerns over staffing remain.
Booker also was not available for comment. Asked to respond to concerns raised by the union, a UIC spokeswoman forwarded a letter written in October by Donovan, who said he and the chancellor are "fully committed to the safety of each member of the UIC community."
Donovan noted that command officers were working on the occasions when only two officers were assigned to patrol campus, which Donovan believed were holidays and times when "there was very little activity on campus."
He said all departments on campus were forced to live with fewer resources after state funding cuts for universities, and said he backed Booker's staffing decisions.
"I do not pretend to have the solution, nor do I accept any consequences of reducing expenditures as ideal," Donovan wrote. "However, I must trust my managers are using their best judgment when making these difficult decisions."
The police union also raised concerns about campus and officer safety after the Trump rally, saying officials weren't prepared to handle the fallout from the event, when skirmishes broke out between Trump supporters and protesters as well as protesters and police. A Chicago Police officer and protester were hurt at the scene.
The university's faculty also expressed concerns before the Trump rally in a letter signed by 329 university faculty members to Amiridis.
Joe Iosbaker, a union steward for SEIU Local 70 at UIC, said that he was shocked to hear that so few officers are patrolling the campus at times.
"If this was one of the workers in the hospital who told their supervisors of an unsafe working environment, I would've told them not to work," Iosbaker said. "I know it is different for the police, but still, it's hypocritical of the university."
Community members have expressed concerns about broken lights and locks on campus in the past.
"The lights have been a problem for many, many years, and it just seems to be a general disregard for safety that goes back since the campus started" in 1965, William O'Neill, a professor of bioengineering at UIC for 50 years, said in 2014. "It's the kind of stuff where you're asking for trouble."
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