POCATELLO — An order for 11 short-barreled assault rifles for campus security officers was suspended shortly before longtime Public Safety Director Stephen Chatterton announced his retirement after 23 years at ISU.
“It came to us as a surprise,” said ISU President Arthur Vailas about Chatterton’s retirement. “We’re very grateful to him for his service.”
The retirement also follows some friction with city police regarding the role of ISU’s Public Safety officers and an order from Idaho State Police Director Col. Ralph Powell suspending the use of red lights on campus patrol vehicle light-bars.
As the Director of Public Safety, Chatterton was instrumental in making ISU one of the safest college campuses in the nation, according to campus officials. One of his last efforts was to begin the process of acquiring short-barreled AR-15 assault rifles with noise suppressors for campus security officers. The rifles were ordered, according to Associate Vice President for ISU Facilities Phil Moessner.
That pre-paid order has been canceled, but Moessner said the university may be on the hook for some of the cost of the guns because the short-barreled rifles would be subject to higher federal taxes if sold to anyone outside of an authorized law enforcement agency. Moessner also defended the initial purchase.
“As a university, we had made a decision that during active-shooter situations the rifles would be one of the tools needed,” Moessner said.
Moessner said Chatterton had always told him that if a shooting took place on campus his officers would respond immediately if they had the weapons. Since the guns on campus law went into effect last summer, ISU has opted to arm its security officers with Glock 9mm pistols.
ISU legal counsel David Alexander said the rifles would have only been used in an emergency active-shooter scenario. Alexander also said the university had secured the necessary clearance from the federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agency. He said there was a slight glitch about the university using an FBI identification number given to it so it could do background checks, but that had been cleared up.
Both Alexander and Moessner said Chatterton will be difficult to replace because of his administrative and planning abilities, as well as his experience in law enforcement.
“The patrol piece we do is just a small part of what we do,” Moessner said.
Moessner said although Chatterton’s retirement was sudden, it was something he talked about the past few years.
“There were some milestones he wanted to achieve with the department and he accomplished that,” Moessner said.