PROVIDENCE — In March 2025, a man armed with an airsoft gun and two knives stepped off a bus onto the Community College of Rhode Island campus in Lincoln.
He had brandished the weapons on the bus — it wasn’t initially clear whether or not it was a real gun — and campus police responded. But those officers, who are trained in the police academy and can make arrests, do not carry guns, “significantly limiting officers’ ability to respond directly to active threat situations,” a State Police review of the incident released in August said.
Months later, on Brown University’s campus, an active shooter walked into the Barus and Holley physics and engineering building on Dec. 13 and killed two students, injuring nine others, before quickly escaping. He was found dead days later in New Hampshire.
The shooting has renewed the debate over providing firearms to police at Rhode Island’s 11 colleges and universities, most of which have unarmed officers or security guards on campus. State officials are discussing whether to arm campus police at public colleges, according to a spokesperson for the postsecondary commissioner’s office, which directly oversees two of the state’s three public colleges.
Both public and private colleges convened in December after the shooting to discuss campus safety, and will continue meeting.
“We’re going to conduct table-top exercises with security professionals about campus security issues for all institutions that want to participate,” Beth Bailey, a spokesperson for the postsecondary commissioner’s office, said. “While we are just starting this process, it’s expected that the issue of arming campus police will be a one of the topics of discussion in the near future.”
Speed matters for first responders to an active shooter situation, said retired Colonel Steven O’Donnell, the former head of the State Police. And campus police often get there first.
If armed, “they can help eliminate the threat or stop the threat,” O’Donnell said. “If they’re not in a position to stop it, they could become a victim, too.”
A 2013 law allowed the state’s public colleges to arm their officers, but only the University of Rhode Island has chosen to do so.
Private colleges can also choose to arm or not arm their officers. Of the eight in the state, only Brown University does so. Both Brown campus police and Providence police officers rushed to the scene on Dec. 13, but the gunman escaped campus just minutes after opening fire.
“They had armed police officers responding to that scene, and if that person was there, they would have engaged them right away,” O’Donnell said.
He said it was critical that armed officers be properly trained, certified, and recognized by the Rhode Island Police Officers Commission on Standards and Training.
“You don’t want just a regular security person working a college campus” to be armed, he said.
Opponents are concerned that campus officers with weapons would misuse them.
At a time when ”innocent bystanders get shot by law enforcement ... having more guns in the hands of law enforcement is going to make students and other members of our community less safe rather than more safe,” said Mikaila Arthur, a sociology professor at Rhode Island College who is president of the union that represents full-time faculty.
State Representative William O’Brien said he will once again attempt to mandate armed police at state colleges this year.
“Response time matters,” O’Brien said. “One minute compared to five minutes makes a big difference.”
O’Brien’s bill would require both CCRI and Rhode Island College to arm their officers and provide bulletproof vests, after providing proper training. He said he expects to get more sponsors than ever this year for his legislation, which failed to make it out of committee last year.
In addition to the Brown shooting, he said the CCRI incident last year showed that officers should show up both armed and wearing bulletproof vests when confronting a person with a weapon.
“They had no guns,” O’Brien said. “And for the presidents of the colleges not to give them those bulletproof vests just proves a lack of understanding of the best practices of police work.”
The State Police review of last year’s incident recommended CCRI “evaluate the feasibility of equipping sworn CCRI police officers with firearms or Tasers,” and also recommended issuing bulletproof vests.
The state’s other two public colleges have been noncommittal on the issue.
Amy Kempe, a spokesperson for CCRI, said the community college is working with the postsecondary commissioner and RIC on a “comprehensive assessment of public safety and emergency preparedness.”
“The study’s findings will provide data-driven insights to guide continuum of force decisions, including arming campus police officers,” Kempe said.
RIC President Jack Warner said the college “has not taken a formal position on this legislation” and is similarly working with the postsecondary commissioner’s office on the issue.
Colonel James Mendonca, the RIC police chief and former chief of Central Falls police, said in 2024 it would take 18 months to arm police at the college, and would cost at least cost $200,000 up front and $25,000 per year.
“I think it’s possible,” said Governor Dan McKee, when asked last week if he would support mandating armed police at public colleges. He said he wants to hear more from the college presidents about their safety plans.
A presentation prepared by Warner for a meeting of the Commission on Postsecondary Education later this week says the college is reviewing its security cameras ahead of the spring semester and adding more if necessary, upgrading its alert system, and hiring more campus police.
Unlike some of the private colleges, RIC and CCRI employ fully sworn officers, who have to graduate from a police academy in order to apply, and their departments are accredited.
Several private colleges, including Johnson & Wales, Providence College, Roger Williams University, and Salve Regina University only have non-sworn officers on campus, who don’t carry guns. None of those universities said they were considering changing that.
House Speaker Joe Shekarchi said he would prefer to leave the decision up to the colleges.
“It’s up to each university to make that decision,” Shekarchi said. “We don’t force universities to arm themselves.”
Opposition to arming campus police has come from the unions representing university faculty, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, both of which have said it could be dangerous to arm campus cops.
“While there is always a hypothetical situation in which campus law enforcement officers could benefit from being armed, it is a certainty that introducing weapons to college campuses brings with it the very real danger of accidental discharges and tragic cases of misunderstandings and misidentifications,” the ACLU of Rhode Island wrote in testimony opposing the bill last year.
Arthur and Vincent Bohlinger, another RIC professor, testified last year that the legislation was “well-intentioned,” but “would not make the RIC campus safer.” They noted there are Providence police substations within two miles of campus.
“Research shows that police use of force is one of the leading causes of death among young men of color,” the professors said. “Students should not have to fear for their lives when walking to class, and arming the campus police would mean increasing that fear.”
Asked if her opinion had shifted at all since the Brown shooting, Arthur said it had not.
“The Brown police were armed,” Arthur said. “And clearly, it didn’t help.”
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