Family, friends, UCF Police officers and staff welcomed three new officers to the department at a swearing-in ceremony earlier this month.
The three bring military service, experience in campus law enforcement, a background in behavioral health and numerous other exceptional qualities to UCFPD.
“We want individuals who have some previous experience and who offer a variety of opportunities for growth as an agency,” said UCF Police Chief Carl Metzger ’03MS. “These three individuals will be an excellent addition to our already diverse UCFPD family and will enable us to better serve the UCF community.”
The new officers are:
- Arthur King, an Army veteran who lived overseas for eight years, including in Estonia, the Philippines and Turkey
- Katie Proffer, a former veterinary technician and former police officer with the University of Missouri
- Nina Stone, who has a background in behavioral health and who played basketball professionally in Israel, Australia and Puerto Rico
The three new officers are currently paired with veteran patrol officers for hands-on field training. Once field training is complete, King, Proffer and Stone will join the UCFPD family as patrol officers at UCF’s main campus.
A live-stream of their swearing-in ceremony can be viewed on Facebook.
The national call for improved police-community relations led UCFPD to double-down on campus conversations and take action to make improvements to training, policies and practices.
Among those changes are new initiatives built into the comprehensive, months-long training all new officers must complete before patrolling on their own.
With an agency focus on community policing and a UCFPD presence at UCF Downtown, agency leadership decided that all UCFPD officers should understand the history of the Parramore neighborhood. This led to a partnership with the Wells’ Built Museum of African American History & Culture, which has provided tours to all sworn UCFPD officers.
The new officers’ training also included courses on fair and impartial policing, implicit bias, racial intelligence training and engagement (RITE), autism awareness, mental health first aid and crisis intervention. While these trainings are provided to UCF Police officers on an annual basis, it is important that all new officers receive this training upfront so that they can draw from what they learn in future interactions with the UCF community.
“We have an agency mantra of ‘Do the right thing,’” says Metzger. “Listening to our community, addressing their concerns and providing the tools to help our officers be the best individuals and officers they can be — that’s doing the right thing, and that’s who we are.”
To learn more about UCFPD’s commitment to transparency as officers who protect and serve, visit ucf.edu/safety/police-transparency.
