NMSU Students Outnumber Campus Officers By The Thousands

LAS CRUCES, NM – New Mexico State University has one of the smallest campus police department in the country – where students outnumber officers nearly 1,200 to one, officials say.

The university is home to 29,000 students and only 19 campus officers are on hand to patrol the entire NMSU campus. The campus is so big, that if it was considered a municipality, it would be considered the ninth largest in the state, according to university officials.

“The bottom line is that we need to have more men on the streets, responding to calls, observing criminal behavior and doing something about it,” said the campus police dispatcher. “What if there’s a Virginia Tech shooting here…obviously, we’re in trouble.”

University officials tell ABC-7 the campus department has had a hard time recruiting new members. Other law enforcement agencies offer thousands more than the university, they said.

“I think we have step back and look at the bottom line. We need to have adequate numbers of people who can respond to a certain situation and we need to have a basic number of police on patrol,” said NMSU Police Chief Jaime Chavez.

ABC-7 has learned there are only two officers on duty at any given time while other officers conduct investigations. Recently, the department learned they would be able to raise salaries to increase recruitment and keep officers already working for the department.

The starting salary for an officer at NMSU is just over $33,000.