I am a student worker at the ULMPD.

For four years, I have worked football games, written tickets and performed other duties to keep the ULM police dept running smoothly. For four years, I have also had to put up with verbal abuse, had TWO close calls with physical assaults and have been labeled the “bad guy”.

Let me tell you what your writer has done. He referred to us as rent-a-cops, suggested that we creep (stalk) and has placed a negative light on student workers that are just trying to make a little money and get by.

Secondly, he is propagating false statements about our parking system.

Using the term rent-a-cop implies that we are a security force. Student workers ARE NOT SECURITY GUARDS. We DO NOT have any authority or right to intervene in situations where a police officer is needed. If we are assaulted, or otherwise attacked, we can do nothing more than call a cop ourselves.

The comment “creeping around the corner laughing and thinking gotcha again” implies that we are out to get our fellow students.

We have preset route we are asked to work. There is no stalking, creeping or personal targeting. In my four years with the campus police, I have been verbally abused and nearly attacked TWICE. I am 6 feet tall and weigh 290 lbs. There are not many people I am afraid of, but people do try to intimidate and force our student workers to not write tickets. Luckily, no one has ever been hurt to my knowledge.

This media coverage is hurtful to UPD student workers because it generates hate toward us. People read this article and think we do it on purpose. If a person is thinking that we are personally targeting their car for tickets and they get a $50 boot, do you think they are going to be happy with us?

There is no parking on campus? Within a hundred yards there is approximately six acres of parking near Airway and more across the bayou in the stadium/coliseum area, which are all open to the students.

Thanks to the new parking garage facility, all of these lots are UNDERUSED by roughly 60%. From any of these lots, one can be in the center of the campus in five to 15 minutes.

Zack’s statement about UPD overselling parking decals is wrong. We require every student to have a decal. If you park in the red, you get a ticket.

We are all struggling students that do what we have to get by. I felt that Zack’s article was targeted at the student workers at UPD, making students who are in the same boat look like the enemy. I take offense to this.

Albert Johnson

Student worker ULMPD