SPOC Comes to Campus

In an interesting, not to mention eye-grabbing, new effort to involve the community in reporting suspicious activities the UCF Police Department hopes to include posters with a rendered version of the Star Trek character, Spock, with instruction as to how UCF students, faculty and staff can recognize suspicious activity and report it to authorities.

The brainchild of UCFPD Community Relations Supervisor, Cpl. James Roop, the presence of the Star Trek character is not deviod of meaning.

The green character with pointy ears and the signature hand sign, will be named SPOC, an acronym for the program name Suspicious Persons On Campus, Roop said.

Visible plaques with the character as well as bulleted information defining suspicious activity and listing contact procedure and information for all on campus will be placed on all UCF main campus buildings.

"It's catchy enough to get noticed and encourage people to report suspicious persons," he said.

The program is one of many responses geared toward preventing mass killings on campus, much like the recent one at Northern Illinois University last week and Virginia Tech last year.

The UCFPD has 60 officers to protect 40,000 students, Roop said.

"We want to get the community involved to help prevent crime."

A parting word from Roop's muse: "In any case, were I to invoke logic, logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." -- Spock, Star Trek: The Film Series