Keep your valuables out of sight

To discourage break-ins and theft from your vehicle, please do not leave any valuables in plain view, especially GPS units. If you do leave valuables in your vehicle, always secure them in your trunk. Also, avoid leaving items in your glove box as this is the first place a criminal looks.


As always, your safety is our first concern. If you see a situation that you think is unusual or are the victim of a crime, contact the Campus Police Department at 816-604-1200. From a College phone, dial 1200. In case of an emergency, call 911 (when using a college phone, dial 8-911).

Street Survival Program at MCC-Blue River this weekend

The Sports Car Club of America holds events at MCC-Blue River’s Preceision Driving Course almost every weekend, and the Street Survival Program is hands down their most important event. Eligible students are 16 to 21 years old and hold a valid unrestricted driver’s license or a valid permit. Here’s the schedule, if you’re interested in attending:

It’s not just about Driving, it’s about Living…. 

• The leading cause of death among 13-19 year olds in the US is from a motor vehicle crash.

• 62% of teenage passenger deaths in 2004 occurred in vehicles driven by another teenager.

• Teenagers cause 2.5 million accidents per year.

• In 2007 that resulted in over 6,000 deaths of teens.

Those sobering statistics should be

MCC PD welcomes four new(ish) officers

Booker Armstrong, David Cooper, Joseph Ham and Zach Goode are not new to MCC but as of last night they all have a new title: police officer.

New MCC police officers (l-r) Zach Goode, Joseph Ham, David Cooper and Booker Armstrong were sworn in after the MCC-Blue River Police Academy graduation Wednesday night.


The four former MCC public safety officers graduated from MCC-Blue River's Police Academy alongside 24 other cadets Wednesday night. As required by the State of Missouri, the cadets completed eight months of intense training and passed a rigorous examination in order to become commissioned police officers.

Cooper, who had been lead public safety officer at MCC-Longview, is

Kelsey Smith Safety Awareness Seminar draws hundreds, makes news

News teams swarmed the campus at MCC-Blue River for the Kelsey Smith Foundation’s Safety Awareness Seminar. Jana Corrie of the KMBC Channel 9 morning show reported on event preparations every half hour from 7:30 to 9 a.m. and interviewed Dean of Instruction Cheryl Carpenter Davis, psychology instructor Kimberly Glackin, and Greg and Missey Smith, the parents of the murdered teen Kelsey, whom took the stage to educate any and all who would listen.

Fox 4 News sent Terra Hall whose report appeared in long format on the late night news:

http://www.fox4kc.com/wdaf-kelsey-smiths-parents-keep-her-legacy-alive-warn-young-people-20110413,0,105411.story

Channel 5 News reporter Jonathan Carter delivered this synopsis of the event on the 6 o’clock news:

http://www.kctv5.com/local-video/index.html?grabnetworks={videoid:4643052}

Hundreds of students and individuals from the community learned important facts about maintaining their personal safety, chief among them being to make sure that someone knows where you are, and to fight back immediately at the first location when accosted. “If you reach location number two,” said Greg Smith, “you will not survive.”

Also present to report on the Kelsey Smith Safety Awareness event were on-air personalities from 88.5fm KLJC.

Classroom doors to get new locks

Classrooms across MCC will soon become a little more secure, thanks to a measure just approved by the board of trustees that calls for installation of more than 500 new door locks.

The locks, which will be installed beginning in May, are intended to protect students, faculty and staff in the event of a public safety emergency involving an intruder or other threat to personal safety. Once installed, the doors will be lockable from both inside and outside of the room. Currently, most classroom and conference room doors can only be locked and unlocked from outside of the room and require the use of a key.

“We want to give students, employees and guests peace of mind,” said Bill Hudson, chief of campus police. “If there is a safety threat in the building or anywhere on campus, people will be able to close and lock the door to protect themselves from danger.”

MCC’s construction and maintenance crews will be manually installing the new knobs and handles on a schedule that will not interfere will classes or other college business. Installation will begin in May and is expected to be complete by the middle of the fall 2011 semester, according to MCC’s construction superintendent Richard Hill.

MCC-Blue River gets visit from Czech Republic official

The MCC- Blue River campus recently had the honor of a visit from an international expert in the training of public safety officers, Dr. Zdislava Tesařová of the Czech Republic. Tesařová had learned from the Grandview Fire Department that MCC-Blue River’s public safety training is instrumental to successful performance in the field for working fire fighters in Grandview, so she visited  Blue River  to take in a personal view of the training procedures that take place here.

According to Mike Hendershot, the MCC-Blue River Public Safety Institute director, Tesařová “was looking at our training. It was my understanding that she heads up a multi-country task force similar to what FEMA is trying to do here in the states for disaster response.”

Also present for the visit was the doctor’s son, a governmental fire fighter working for the state in the Czech Republic.
For more information about the MCC-Blue River Public Safety Institute, visit their website.

See something suspicious? Report it!

The MCC Police Department has taken yet another step to empower students and employees to look out for one another.

The new MCC Tips Hotline allows any student, employee or guest at MCC to report suspicious activity anonymously by phone or online.

The purpose of these new tip-reporting tools, said Domenick Brouillette, associate director of public safety, is to engage the whole MCC community in campus safety by simplifying the process for reporting suspicious behavior or activity.

“Community involvement is the key to a good community oriented policing program,” said Brouillette. “And because we know some people hesitate

FEMA trains colleges at MCC-Blue River

Last week, MCC-Blue River hosted a FEMA-sponsored training for colleges. The training, entitled “Multi-Hazard Emergency Planning for Higher Education,” covered various elements of emergency management.

With recent events serving as a sobering reminder that public safety incidents are difficult to predict and to prevent, campus safety is at the top of local school officials' minds. However, these days, first responders are not the only people who should be prepared to react to emergencies, says MCC-Blue River's Dean of Instruction Cheryl Carpenter Davis.

In addition to MCC campuses and other Kansas City-area colleges, officials from colleges in Jefferson City, St. Joseph, St. Louis, and Pratt, Kan. also attended the training.

The training covered topics such as:

• The phases of emergency management
• Identifying hazards and using risk assessment processes
• Responding using ICS (Incident Command System) and setting up an Emergency Operations Center
• Partnering with the community
• Developing plans; training and testing the plans 
• Engaging the campus community

Participants engage in small group activities during training.

FEMA materials said the premise of the training was to equip six to eight individuals from each institution to “take skills and knowledge back to their own campuses to facilitate the emergency planning process.”

Members of the press were invited to observe the event on Wednesday, February 16. Reporters from The Kansas City Star and the eastern Jackson County publication The Examiner covered the event.

Participants indicated an increased comfort with emergency management after attending the workshop.

“One of the many things I found helpful from attending the training was the guidance the instructors provided in designing sound plans for either man-made or natural emergencies,” said Bob Florence, MCC-Blue River marketing coordinator. “The table-top exercise and other group work were great ways to practice what we learned in the course.”

MCC-Maple Woods Spotlight: Chuck Carter, Public Safety Officer

Test of MCC Alert - Friday, Dec. 17

The MCC police/public safety department will be conducting a test of the MCC Alert emergency notification system this Friday, Dec. 17. A test alert message will be sent by email to all students and employees and will be posted on the front page of the MCC website.

Those students and employees who have opted in to the MCC Notify Me emergency text message system should also receive a text message. Additional information about MCC’s emergency notification procedures can be found at the new MCC Alert web page. If you encounter any technical problems with the test, please contact the MCC TechLine.

Note: this test is scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday and will be clearly labeled as a test. In the event that an actual emergency should occur on Friday, please heed the warning of any notification that is not marked as a test.

Call for help with the push of a button

MCC students, employees and visitors now have a way to call MCC police/public safety with the push of a single button. As part of ongoing district-wide efforts to ensure student and employee safety, the emergency preparedness task force implemented a reprogramming of one of the quick-dial buttons on every phone in the network (including employees' desk phones) to dial the MCC police/public safety control center.

In the event of an emergency, anyone who is near a phone will now be able to simply press that button, without even picking up the handset, to reach MCC police/public safety. The button will is now labeled EMERGENCY. This change was made to all MCC phones so that anyone with access to a phone will be able to quickly call for help.

Making it easier to call for help

MCC students, employees and visitors will soon have a way to call MCC police/public safety with the push of a single button.

As part of ongoing district-wide efforts to ensure student and employee safety, the emergency preparedness task force is implementing a reprogramming of one of the quick-dial buttons on every phone in the network (including employees' desk phones) to dial the MCC police/public safety control center.

In the event of an emergency, anyone who is near a phone will now be able to simply press that button, without even picking up the handset, to reach MCC police/public safety. The button will be labeled EMERGENCY. This change is being made to all MCC phones so that anyone with access to a phone will be able to quickly call for help.

The reprogramming will take place between Dec. 9 and Dec. 13. Employees who currently have a phone number programmed into the bottom-most quick-dial button on their phone should make other arrangements for future dialing of that number.

Farewell to Dennis DeLong

Pictured are BTC President Debbie Goodall, Retiree Dennis DeLong and Lab Tech Jennifer Dec.

Dennis DeLong was recognized Monday for his 25 years of service as an MCC Public Safety officer. He retired at the end of November, and was honored at a reception at MCC-Business & Technology.

A special farewell "card" was designed and created by Jennifer Dec, using a laser engraver on a cork surface to reproduce farewell wishes from MCC-BTC co-workers.

Sign up for emergency text alerts

The new emergency text alert system, named MCC Notify Me, is a brand new system. If you signed up for the old system anytime prior to last week, you are NOT automatically signed up for the new system. No text alerts will be sent out through the old system following Dec. 1, 2010.

With more and more of us relying on mobile phones to receive information, we know that text messaging is often the quickest way to convey urgent alerts. Subscription to MCC Notify Me is not required, but MCC encourages you to subscribe so that we can do our best to inform you about weather-related campus closings and public safety alerts.

There is no cost to sign up, but your mobile carrier’s standard text messaging rates may apply.

Log onto myMCCKC and click "Manage MCC Notify Me" link to receive emergency text alerts.

Centralized phone system at the district’s Command Center

Over the summer, the public safety office main phone lines at each campus began forwarding their phones to the Public Safety Control Center, located at 1601 Prospect, during times when the campus office is vacant.

“The reason for the switch from calling the local public safety office to the command center was to improve response,” said Bill Hudson, chief of campus police. This change was made to ensure students and employees would contact a live person; weak cell phone signals didn’t allow the transferred calls to always reach campus safety. The change was intended to enhance customer service and provide better communication said Domenick Brouillette, associate director of public safety.

“When a call comes into the command center, all of the on duty officers can be contacted at one time,” said Hudson.

Due to this change, you may be asked for more information regarding your call for service. Since the Control Center will be receiving calls from all campuses, please provide the officer with the following information: (Caller ID does not show campus location).

· Your name
· Phone number you are calling from (when requested)
· Location you are calling from (campus, building, parking lot, etc.)
· Nature of call
· Call-back number

Any questions can be directed to contact Domenick Brouillette at 816.604.1370.

Congrats Fire Academy graduates

The Public Safety Institute (PSI) of MCC-Blue River recently held its Fire Academy graduation on Monday, Sept. 20. The guest speaker for the event was Chief Ken Potter of the Gladstone Fire Department.

The presentation of colors, which began the ceremony, was conducted by the Gladstone Fire Department. The guest singer was Steve Leone (retired) of the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department and the invocation/benediction was given by Larry Block, Excelsior Springs Fire Chaplain.

Issuing the certificates were Basil Lister, associate dean of instruction, Mike Hendershot, PSI director, Butch Roll, PSI chief of training, Doug Hobbs and Rusty Sullivan, PSI assistant chiefs of training and Harold Kenyon, PSI instructor.

Those graduating included Amy J. Ervin, class president and cadets:

• Jeffrey M. Baar
  
• Kellene A. Lyman
  
• James E. Beebe
  
• Dustin M. Martinez
  
• Matthew T. Clemmons
  
• Salvatore A. Palazzolo
  
• Jonathan E. Cox
  
• Nicholas S. Perez
  
• Joshua D. Evans
  
• Jeremy R. Russell
  
• Alyse N. Gordon
  
• Brandon L. Smith
  
• Carl J. Hesse
  
• Shane S. Stevens
  
• Joseph R. Jones
  
• Erin E. Wakefield
  
• Joshua R. Westcott

For more information about the fire academy and other PSI programs, call 816.604.6700 or visit www. mcckc.edu/blueriver.

Tips for staying safe on campus

Metropolitan Community College is committed to ensuring the safety of students, staff and community members on all MCC campuses. Knowing what to do and where to go for help is the cornerstone of staying safe at all times.

MCC makes it simple.

Public safety officers are stationed on each MCC campus. They work in coordination with other departments and organizations to keep campuses secure. We can all make their jobs easier by remembering the following tips:

Safety Tip 1: In case of emergency, parking lots are equipped with designated call boxes. The red call buttons patch calls directly to “911”. Similarly, the black buttons are filtered to the campus public safety office.

In a recent article, the online publication Campus Safety Magazine praised call boxes, such as those on MCC campuses, because they enable individuals to “communicate with campus law enforcement who can pinpoint the caller’s location, thereby reducing response time and getting immediate help to the caller.”

Again, call stations and the alert buttons are for emergency situations only. If your circumstance is not an emergency, call or visit your campus Public Safety for assistance.

MCC’s Public Safety officers encourage everyone to play a part in campus safety. For instance, quickly report suspicious individuals (or questionable activity) to your campus’ Public Safety Department.

Safety Tip 2: Should you need to dial 911 from a campus telephone, make a mental note to dial “8” before dialing “911”.

Safety Tip 3: Know whom to call and how. Either bookmark this page to your favorites or write down your campus safety office number for quick and easy access. You may also sign up for campus text updates by clicking here.

Public Safety Staff by Campus

Blue River Public Safety
816.604.6523

Business & Technology Center Public Safety
816.604.5260

Penn Valley Public Safety
816. 604.4123

Maple Woods Public Safety
816. 604.3123

Longview Public Safety
816. 604.2123

Pioneer Public Safety
(816) 604-5023


To visit MCC's Public Safety website, click here.

*Special thanks to Blue River's Security Officer, Marla Wynes for pictures, tips and resources.

Introducing Bill Hudson

To say there’s a new sheriff in town might be an overstatement, but Bill Hudson, MCC’s new chief of campus police, fits the description.

Hudson, with more than 35 years of military and law enforcement experience, started at MCC in January and oversees MCC’s public safety department.

He previously served as the Chief Law Enforcement Officer for Parkville, Mo. and has taught at Park University, Missouri Western State College and the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department Training Academy. Previously an MCC student, Hudson earned his associate’s
degree at MCC-Longview, his bachelor’s degree from Avila and a master’s of public affairs from
Park University.

“In the short time that I’ve been here, I have found that community is more than just a word in the college’s title,” said Hudson. “This is an exciting opportunity to work with a great group of people enhancing safety and contributing to the academic process.”

The chief of campus police is a new position, created as MCC plans to gradually switch from a public safety team to an MCC Police Department. This transition will occur over time, while current public safety officers receive officer training and certification. No current public safety officers will lose their job.