Don’t worry

Me, age 23, in my CSO uniform, standing in front of the best car I ever had – a 1989 Toyota Corolla SR5 coupe with pop-up headlights.

About a month after receiving my bachelor’s degree in Anthropology, I accepted a position with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Police Department (UNLPD) as a Community Service Officer (CSO). The intention was to take advantage of the $3 a credit hour – max six hours per semester – the university offered to employees and get a master’s degree in Anthropology.

A UNLPD officer was a trained Nebraska State Trooper, but worked solely on campus. A CSO worked in the dorms and the buildings overnight to check for safety and security issues. CSOs were trained to do their job, but also in other situations, such as how to use weapons because there were times we worked side-by-side with an officer. CSOs could, essentially, do everything an officer could do except a CSO did not have the power of arrest.

One of the requirements for working for UNLPD was working every home football game. My first year with the department, I was assigned to the ticket office with an officer.

If you weren’t on our list, you weren’t getting in the building. We were the only line of defense.

Twenty-three year old me wrote this in my journal three days before the first game of the season.

Wednesday, 1 September 1993.

I found out today that I am working the ticket office for Saturday’s football game. It is the #1 place to get robbed.

I asked Sgt. Manning, “What happens if the ticket office gets robbed?”

“Don’t worry, Laura Cooper will be with you.”

I said, “What happens if we get robbed?”

“Don’t worry, Laura will use her gun.”

I said, “What if they have guns?”

“Don’t worry. Laura wears a vest.”

I said, “What if they shoot Laura in the head?”

“Don’t worry, you’ll have Laura’s gun.”