For the first time, Maysville Community and Technical College has an armed officer on one of its campuses. Chris Neal, of the Maysville Police Department, started in his new role this week.
MCTC signed a memorandum of agreement with the police department earlier this month to acquire a school resource officer to be on campus. Through that deal, Neal, who is also Community Liaison, will be at the Maysville campus for 20 hours per week.
Laura McCollough, President and CEO of MCTC said Neal’s new role is not the same as a regular police officer.
“If Officer Neal notices that a student seems just a little out of sorts, then he reaches out and talks with them, and counsels them and just tries to get to the cause of that student’s problems. They’re not out to incarcerate all of our students; they’re out to help our students,” McCollough said.
McCollough added MCTC plans on getting an SRO on all of their campuses.
“We’re going to be signing a similar memorandum of understanding with the city of Cynthiana and their police department, and the Harrison County Board of Education, and we’re going to share one of their SROs. I think it’ll start in October, then we’ll move to Mount Sterling and try to do the same kind of understanding with their city and their police officers,” McCollough said.
MCTC officials decided to start the process with their Maysville campus because the building has many entrances and exits. McCollough said they wanted to improve security measures there during the busiest times of day.