After close-up experience with crime, UCLA student Morgan Byers hopes to join UCPD, serve community
Morgan Byers, a fourth-year sociology student, has been a community service officer for two years. She hopes to join UCPD this November.
By Alexia Boyarsky
Sept. 16, 2011 4:13 p.m.
Two years ago, an unexpected twist to Morgan Byers’ move-in weekend set her on a career path that led her to apply to the university police.
While waiting in an elevator to go to dinner with two friends, the fourth-year sociology student held open the elevator to let in another man.
Suddenly, the man pulled his shirt up over his mouth, took out a knife and demanded the girls’ wallets and any electronics they had on them.
“With a knife being three inches from my face, I started thinking, “˜This is my safety and I should probably cooperate,'” Byers said.
Byers and her friends gave the man all their money and their cameras. They immediately called the police when the man ran away.
Although the suspect was never caught, the incident spurred Byers to participate in a program that would allow her to protect her community.
Several days later, she applied to be a community service officer.
“I didn’t even know about the program before,” Byers said. “The investigator who was helping me brought (CSOs) up and I applied the same day.”
Now Byers is in the process of taking the next step ”“ applying to be a police officer with the UCPD.
Byers had already considered joining the police force. But her mugging and ensuing experiences as a CSO made her more certain of her choice of career.
Of the approximately 85 CSOs employed by the university, few each year go on to apply to the UCPD, said university spokeswoman Nancy Greenstein. Many CSOs apply to departments outside of the campus, either sheriff’s departments or their local police stations, Byers said.
“For most of (the CSOs), it’s just a college student job,” Greenstein said. “But every year a handful do apply (to UCPD).”
For those who go on to become UCPD officers, experience in the CSO program is a good introduction to the life of a police officer, said Sgt. Scott Scheffler, a UCLA alumnus who started in the CSO program in 1998.
Scheffler said the program allowed him to work closely with UCPD officers and gave him insight on the internal workings of a police department.
The fact that she had worked with a few of the officers as a CSO, including going on ride-alongs and seeing officers at calls to the residence halls, helped her decision, Byers said.
The close-knit atmosphere of the UCPD made Byers choose to apply to the UCPD over one of the larger city police departments.
“I like that as a small department, they work well together and seem to help each other,” Byers said.
Scheffler and Byers said the program helped bring them closer to the community around them.
Their drive to protect the university first as students and later as police officers influenced both Scheffler and Byers to apply to the UCPD.
“I have a lot of pride for UCLA, and the program gave me an opportunity to keep the area safe, so that everyone would have as positive an experience as I was having.” Scheffler said.
Byers, who started the application process in May, will tentatively know if she gets the job by November. If she is hired by the UCPD, she will leave school and start a 20-week training program.
“If the job opportunity comes, I have to take it,” she said. “I can finish my education later.”
When she returns from training, Byers plans to work and go to school part-time until she finishes her degree.
