UC Berkeley parents hire private security, allege university is not doing enough

Concerns over student safety and rising crime in the vicinity of UC Berkeley have become so high that a group of parents hired private security to monitor city streets around the campus.

Parents and community members of SafeBears, a nonprofit organization started in 2022, raised $40,000 at the end of 2023 to launch the pilot program, which started March 6 and concludes on Saturday, according to the group’s website. Six security guards from Streetplus, a third-party contractor, are patrolling five routes around the campus and the university’s residence halls on foot and by bicycle from 6:30 p.m. to 3 a.m. daily. 

Sagar Jethani, president of SafeBears, told SFGATE that the program will not continue past Saturday but the group will continue to advocate for student safety.

“While we will not be extending the length of our private safety pilot beyond March 23, we will certainly continue to push the administration at UC Berkeley to do more to protect students from violence,” Jethani said in an email. 

The security guards are not armed and will not enter university property, the website says, but are trained in de-escalation and CPR. They also must earn a California “guard card” from the California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services, requiring them to clear a background check from the California Department of Justice and FBI. 

The move comes as Berkeley, home to California’s flagship university and to many of its students, faces a spike in crime rates in multiple categories. Violent crime in the city was up 15% last year over 2022, according to a 2023 Berkeley Police Department Annual Report, filed to the City Council on March 12. Robberies rose 32%, with 386 robberies recorded in 2023 compared with 292 in 2022, and sexual assaults climbed 9%, from 89 in 2022 to 97 last year. And just last month, an individual fired a gun multiple times on the UC Berkeley campus. Following the shooting, the university faced criticism for its WarnMe system, which sent out a message to students 40 minutes after the shooting. 

SafeBears members told SFGATE they hope the temporary program puts pressure on the university officials to enact more security measures to protect students in the places they live, learn and relax. Because so far, they said, the school has not done enough.

“I knew that Berkeley is an urban environment and it’s always had that reputation and that’s fine. I’ve lived in places like that,” Victoria Cole, a SafeBears member and mother of a first-year student, told SFGATE. “But what’s just been so disappointing is to find out that the university is not providing security appropriate to that level of threat.”

When SFGATE visited the campus’ perimeter on a weekday evening, many students in groups and alone roamed the area. There weren’t any immediate signs of crime at the start of the SafeBears shift at approximately 6:30 p.m.

Three blocks from the main campus at the now-closed People’s Park, at least two non-SafeBears security guards were stationed on every corner of the wall of shipping containers surrounding the park. SFGATE finally ran into two SafeBears guards, wearing bright yellow vests labeled “security” on the back, at least 30 minutes after arriving in the area.

Teresa Brooks, a security guard working for the SafeBears program, told SFGATE that students have told her they feel relieved when they see her and fellow guards on the streets. She said she hasn’t responded to many incidents so far and she feels the streets have been safe during her time working. 

But Brooks added that she also believes UC Berkeley’s administration should take bigger steps to install more safety measures. 

“They didn’t care about the parents with their kids being safe,” she said. “So the parents just raised the money to see how the program goes, and maybe hopefully, [the university] sees how the program goes, they might do something.”

SafeBears member Bruce Bauer, a UC Berkeley graduate who worked as a University of California Police Department (UCPD) officer from 1978 to 2010, told SFGATE that he also believes the university isn’t taking the crime threats as seriously as it should. He’s particularly concerned about the number of sworn UCPD officers, which he feels is too low.

“Students should be having the time of their lives, not fearing for their lives,” Bauer said.

As of January 2024, there are 45 sworn UCPD officers at the university, Roqua Montez, a spokesperson for UC Berkeley, told SFGATE. Montez said the SafeBears program raises a “number of concerns” for the university because of the training and experience of the private security staff. 

“We do not believe that private security should take precedence over hiring sworn officers,” she said.

She added that the university believes campus funds should be spent hiring more UCPD officers instead. 

“Parents who want to donate funds toward additional campus security can do so via a university fund that has been established,” Montez said. 

But many members of SafeBears, including Cole, said they are frustrated with the university’s concerns about the program. They counter that the university has hired private security for other issues, including student protests and on-campus events and to protect the school’s $8 million seizure of People’s Park in January.

“They spent millions bringing in cops from all over to create a task force to protect that [People’s Park] construction,” Bauer said. 

UC Berkeley spent $3.77 million on security for its seizure of People’s Park, including $1.47 million for overtime for UCPD officers and $633,000 for outside security services.

UC Berkeley students that SFGATE spoke to also said they are satisfied with the pilot program. 

Tyler Mahomes, a senior at UC Berkeley who has served as a member of the student government, told SFGATE that he’s seen conversations around safety occur often at the university and believes students do feel unsafe. 

“I would say nearly every student on this campus has some instance where they felt unsafe walking somewhere or know somebody who has felt unsafe walking somewhere, and it’s become almost the point where like, that’s the norm, which I think is very harmful,” Mahomes said. 

He said his first impression of the SafeBears program was positive and ever since seeing the security guards in yellow vests, he feels like students feel a little better about walking around campus. He said the university can provide more safety measures for students beyond the current resources such as an escort system, a shuttle service and a network of blue-light emergency call phones.

“I’m definitely very happy that a program like this is being put in place because at the bare minimum, it’s preventative,” Mahomes said. “I do wish that the university took more of a role in making sure that students do feel safe on this campus because I don’t want something worse to happen for more people to care.”

Caroline Crowley, a freshman at the university, also expressed concern about the alert system but said she welcomes the program. She said besides the SafeBears members in yellow vests, she’s also noticed more university patrols around campus in recent weeks.

“It’s a little frightening to see how often and how much they’re needed, but it’s more reassuring to see the security personnel there than to not have them there,” she said.

Mahomes added that the university could allocate more funds to additional resources, including more officers, training for officers, or safety ambassadors.

“If we’re going to be seeing more of these like gun violence situations, the reality is we do need these on campus because they are best situated to respond to something like that,” he said. “If anything, the extra funding should be used to have better interactions with the current services we have on campus, whether that’s better training with more police.”

UC Berkeley is taking on new efforts to increase campus safety, including increasing surveillance cameras, adding card access to buildings and hiring more staff and UCPD officers, Montez said. The university also hired additional community service officers, Montez said, with 90 officers as of next week, in contrast to 58 in early fall. 

For students like Mahomes, though, the school can only do more.

“Thank god, nobody has been shot, but the second a student dies, I don’t think that that’s when we should start actually taking this seriously,” he said.