Facing rising crime from neighboring areas and a record-breaking number of robberies last year, University Police have formed a squad of several officers to more effectively address crime trends.

The formation of the squad, called a Special Emergency Response Team, came after police officials became concerned that patrol officers and detectives were being pulled from regular duty to address outbreaks of crime over the past several years, such as the 2002 Washington-area sniper shootings and a string of alarming robberies last school year, police officials said.

“You can only ask officers to do so much,” University Police spokeswoman Maj. Cathy Atwell said. “We were really spreading our resources very thin.”

Maj. Paul Dillon, who oversees police patrols, said pulling officers from other duties compromised the department’s ability to respond to calls and backlogged detectives’ investigations.

“We left other things short, but we fought the problem,” Dillon said, although police were scheduled far beyond their expected 40 hours per week to handle the workload.

Dillon said Cpt. Chris Jagoe, who commands the department’s investigations unit, came up with the idea for the squad about a year and a half ago, and it began operating last week.

The team is already focused on reversing a recent trend of bike thefts. Forty-six bikes have been stolen this summer, Atwell said, indicating the thefts may be the work of small groups of criminals working together. Although some of the bikes stolen were secured with locks, none was secured with the stronger U-shaped locks, she said.

The SERT squad began surveillance, which sometimes entails planting a decoy bike, then watching it to see if someone tries to steal it.

“It’s boring work, but you sit out there and watch it for eight hours,” Dillon said.

The squad’s other assignments will evolve as crime problems become apparent, Dillon said, and SERT members will be asked to perform crime data analysis in an attempt to identify crime patterns before they get out of hand.

University Police officers expressed a high level of interest in joining the squad and competed for a spot on the team. Officers wanting to join were required to send a letter of interest, provide examples of investigative work and be interviewed.

“These guys are doing the heart of police work,” Atwell said. “This is really exciting stuff to do.”

In order to gain university funding for the squad, University Police officials were required to show the department had a need for the team. When crime becomes a problem in most areas, officials traditionally respond by adding more officers.

But in this case, Atwell said the argument wasn’t just that the department needed new officers, but a group of officers who could be mobilized to intervene in particular areas.

“There’s a lot of proof of need, a lot of justification,” Atwell said. “The administration is balancing requests from a lot of people.”

Vice President for Administrative Affairs John Porcari said the request from police officials received a high priority, however.

“We carefully reviewed the proposal and had a lot of discussion back and forth and some fine tuning of the proposal was made before it went forward,” Porcari said. “We’ve always made public safety our No. 1 priority, so we’ve always provided the resources needed.”

In addition to working on larger crime trends, SERT will also work alcohol enforcement during game events, patrolling parking lots and busting up rowdy tailgates. Dillon said that duty was considered overtime and will not take away from the squad’s other work.

Contact reporter Will Skowronski at skowronskidbk@gmail.com.