Dawson interviwed one year after Burk case

On March 4, 2008, Auburn University freshman Lauren Burk of Marietta, Ga., was kidnapped and murdered in a crime that attracted national attention and sent two communities into mourning. Within a week, Courtney L. Lockhart was charged with her murder. He is now awaiting trial.

As the anniversary approaches, Auburn Police Division Assistant Chief Tommy Dawson sat down for an interview with Opelika-Auburn News report Brittany Whitley. He was joined by police Capt. Tom Stofer of the Auburn Police Division and Randal Cerovsky, assistant director of the Auburn University Department of Public Safety and Security. They were prohibited from talking specifically about the case because of a judicial gag order.

The Auburn Police Division provides law enforcement on the AU campus.

Slideshow: Remembering Lauren Burk

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Here is the interview: 

Whitley: Do you think there could be another case like Lauren Burk?
Dawson: Well, I’m not commenting on Lauren Burk at all. Make sure we get that clear off the bat. Any crime can occur basically anywhere, anytime. ... Something I’ve always said, as a police officer, if you’re in it for a job, you’re in it for the wrong reason. For a true police officer, it’s a calling. … We’re not in it because we’re looking to get rich; we’re in it because we want to keep crimes, such as that one, from happening. So, yes, ... I lay awake at night a lot of times, thinking what can we do for our citizens. Not just on the campus per se, but the entire City of Auburn. What can we do to keep any kind of horrendous crime from happening? That’s your goal as an officer — to protect, especially when you work on a college campus-type town where you have almost 25,000 students that we’re responsible for. Those are not just students; those are people’s children. ... When they get away from mom and dad, mom and dad depend on us to take care of them. So could it happen, sure, anything can happen anywhere. But you can be sure that we are doing all we can possibly do to keep that from ever happening again. That’s probably the worst, not that particular case, but that type of thing is probably the worst thing an officer can go through, when something like that happens to an innocent person in your city. ...

Whitley: Over the last year, have there been any security updates?
Dawson: We are constantly updating our security in the city as well as the campus. ... I personally believe we have made great strides in the safety and security of our students in the last year. Not specifically due to that one case I’m not commenting on, but because we have a plan that we were working on, well before this happened. Providing more cameras, providing extra patrols, we purchased mobile devices to call T-3s (small, battery-powered, three-wheeled vehicles), where officers can ride around campus ... without having to walk, cover more ground in a quicker fashion. We’ve added some security monitors. I really don’t want to get too specific. We don’t really want the criminals to know exactly what we’re doing, but you can bet that we have taken some extraordinary steps to ensure the safety of the Auburn University campus and also our entire city.
Cerovsky: A lot of the stuff was already in place, but it’s been beefed up. ... The security shuttle system that we run at night that strictly does on-campus only, it used to stop running at 2 a.m. After this case, it now runs to 7 a.m. So there is no lapse in coverage between Tiger Transit and the security shuttle. The security shuttle ... used to be at two vans; now, we’re at seven vans. It’s utilized. We may have to look at increasing the number vans now because it is getting a lot of usage. Like Chief Dawson said, we’re constantly looking at ways to improve what we’re already doing ... Really, I don’t know anything new that we’ve done, we’ve just …
Dawson: We’re just trying to do what we have been doing better. As horrendous as something like that was to happen, we don’t want somebody’s iPod stolen. We take that serious. It’s the little things that you’ve got to put a stop to keep the big things from happening. We don’t want an iPod stolen, we don’t want a laptop stolen. ... We concentrate on all aspects ... whether it be a minor assault, or a theft of a laptop. If the parents trust Auburn University and the police officers to send their child here to school, we want to do all we can do to keep them safe and keep them happy while they’re here.

Whitley: Does broadcasting some of the security measures, such as the cameras, work as a deterrent to crime?
Dawson: I think it helps. I’ll say this, I was over this week at Randy’s office ... looking at some of the newer cameras they put up … and I was highly impressed with the effort they put into it and things they do have on camera now. It’s very impressive. Not only am I speaking as a police officer, but I’m speaking as someone who has a 62-year-old mother working on campus, my wife works on campus and my daughter will soon be a student on campus. So, I have other interests in the safety of the campus as well, and I’m very impressed with the efforts they’ve taken with the camera system. I think we have probably one of the best camera systems for any campus around.

Whitley: What do you say to parents when they ask about security on campus?
Dawson: We tell them where all of our security phones are at, what to look for. A big thing we always like to point out, especially for our female students, use the buddy system. If you’re going anywhere after dark, no matter where it’s at, ask a friend to go with you. There’s always strength in numbers. Not that we think it will happen again, but you want to always make sure that you are doing all you can do to prevent it from happening.
Cerovsky: Especially with female students, we offer RAD — rape, aggression, defense program ... That’s one of the things we encourage all females to take ... because it goes over awareness, how to be aware of your surroundings, how to avoid certain situations, and if it’s unavoidable, we give them options as to what they can do if they are in a situation. ... That program has been around over 10 years. ... It is now a university class. ... We actually teach it, and they can get a P.E. credit for it. ... The officers here go over to the sororities, and do talks with the sororities; whenever we’re invited, the fraternities. We’re doing everything we’re asked to do as far as trying to get the word of safety out there. Nobody is turned down. Someone calls and says we would like to have an officer come and talk about safety, we find an officer that’s trained in that type setting to go over there and talk to them.

Whitley: Is there enough manpower to cover Auburn and the campus?
Dawson: I think there is enough manpower to cover right now. You know we’re in hard economic times. Everybody is suffering. So I will say this, I think the city is doing remarkably well in staffing police officers right now considering the economic times. We haven’t had to lay anyone off or anything like that. We currently have 11 new officers in the academy right now, so very shortly we will have 11 new officers out on patrol.

Whitley: Do you have separate officers to patrol the city and AU?
Dawson: No, right now we just try to split it up on a daily basis. That way it doesn’t become monotonous to anybody … If you put an officer there the entire time, sometimes it becomes monotonous to them. You give them something different to look at every day. However, having said that, we do have three officers dedicated specifically to the campus. We have two bike officers 24 hours a day ... as well as vehicle patrol. Then we have another officer who is dedicated strictly to the campus Monday through Friday. And then we also have the officers assigned to the beats on campus.

Whitley: How has the case personally affected you?
Dawson: Well, not to comment on that case, but I’ll tell you this. Any serious crime you think about it. It doesn’t go away just because you bring an investigation to a close. I can think back on crimes that occurred 21, 22 years ago. I went to a wreck scene that involved a young college coed out on Moore’s Mill Road. She was killed upon impact in a car crash. I probably think about it a least once, twice a week. I can still see her in the car. ... Any horrendous crime or death investigation you have to go to, you really never get it out of you. You may be a police officer, but you’re still a human being. You still have a little girl of your own at your house. You still have a wife, you still have parents, you still have family. And you can’t help but think, if not but for the grace of God that could have been my relative. A car crash or anything else.