Ohio State University Police Department Chief Kimberly Spears-McNatt (left) is set to retire Monday, with Monica Moll (right) to take over as interim OSUPD chief. Credit: Courtesy of The Ohio State University
After 34 years with the department, the Ohio State University Police Department — or OSUPD — Chief Kimberly Spears-McNatt is set to retire Monday. Monica Moll, former Ohio State director of public safety, will step in as interim OSUPD chief and serve as the associate vice president of public safety.
Spears-McNatt said she graduated from Ohio State in 1993 and joined the OSUPD in 1994, making her a long-time Buckeye community member. She was named the OSUPD’s first female police chief in 2018, according to the Department of Public Safety website.
“I literally have grown up on this campus — my 20s, 30s, 40s, now 50s,” Spears-McNatt said. “But it’s a lot, it’s bittersweet.”
Spears-McNatt said she was able to accomplish many of her goals as chief, including making sure her command staff was cross-trained with professional development, reshaping the culture of the organization and obtaining advanced accreditation for the division. As of now, 42% of OSUPD’s sworn personnel are women or from underrepresented groups, Spears-McNatt said.
On the topic of student safety, Spears-McNatt pointed to Blankenship Hall, which is named after Mike Blankenship, OSUPD’s first officer killed in the line of duty.
“He was adamant about the importance of community service and crime prevention, and so that is always at the forefront of how we interact with the community, making sure that we’re sharing that information with our students, staff and faculty — crime prevention tips and safety,” Spears-McNatt said.
According to previous Lantern reporting, the OSUPD and state troopers were involved in the April 25 pro-Palestine on-campus protest, which led to 36 students and community members being arrested. During campus protests, Spears-McNatt said the “No. 1 priority is keeping everyone safe.”
“You’re going to have people who have different perspectives, religious beliefs, opinions about everything,” Spears-McNatt said. “But our job is that we remain neutral, and we always provide a safe environment for everyone.”
Spears-McNatt said she is most proud of how she has maintained a good working relationship with students as they are comfortable around her.
“At any given time that I [walked] across campus and [students] didn’t see the chief, they just saw Kimberly, and that’s all I ever asked for,” Spears-McNatt said.
Spears-McNatt is moving on to Clemson University to serve as its associate vice president of public safety starting Sept. 2, she said.
Moll will take over as interim OSUPD chief as the university searches for Spears-McNatt’s official replacement. Additionally, Moll will now take on the role of associate vice president for public safety, largely keeping the same responsibilities she had in her previous position as director of public safety, which she has been in since 2016.
Moll oversees the OSUPD, Communications and Security Technology, Central Campus Security Services, Wexner Medical Center Security and Emergency Management and Fire Prevention, according to an Aug. 16 Ohio State News article.
Moll is involved in the national search for the next OSUPD chief, she said. Moll said she would like to fill the position as soon as possible and before the fall semester is over, but the search is likely to take at least three months.
“I’ll be reviewing applications probably as soon as next week to make that initial round of collecting applications, finding out who the top groups are and then setting up on-campus
interviews,” Moll said.
In terms of balancing her roles as associate vice president of public safety and interim chief, Moll said she has two “very competent deputy chiefs” to help her.
“Kimberly Spears-McNatt — we’re really going to miss her, but she set us up so well,” Moll said. “It’s not a surprise that she was coming up on 30 years here, and we’ve been talking for the last couple years about succession planning and making sure that the police division is set up for success after she’s gone, and part of that has been involving our deputy chiefs of police, Eric Whiteside and Dennis Jeffrey, for helping me in this interim period.”
There will not be much new safety infrastructure this fall, Moll said. Rather, the university will be “doubling down” on initiatives that have already begun.
“As one example, license plate readers, when we first started those, it took a while to roll out the full pallet of 60 to 65 of those,” Moll said. “And so, there was a smaller number at first until we got to the full number.”
Along with license plate readers, Moll will continue to implement training and better communication methods.
“Just having that technology out there doesn’t do a lot of good if you haven’t trained the police officers and the dispatchers [on] how to use it,” Moll said. “So, that was sort of the next step. And then, making sure that we’re communicating with Columbus Division of Police when our people and our communication center here in Blankenship Hall see a hit or something on a license plate reader.”
Moll said universities, especially larger state schools like Ohio State, are places where people want to exercise their First Amendment rights.
“There’s a long history of that at every university,” Moll said. “We’re prepared for that — we want to make sure that we support everyone’s First Amendment rights. Part of that support, though, is making sure they know where the limits are.”
The university space rules were reviewed this summer, Moll said. They are now called “university space standards,” and Moll said they were refined for specificity.
“If there were any open areas — like overnight events were not allowed without prior permission — but when does overnight start?” Moll said. “Being more specific about those kinds of things so our students, faculty and staff know where those parameters and those reasonable time, space [and] manner restrictions are.”
Moll said the university is communicating with student groups that have been active with protests, as well as with faculty and staff members about the new space standards.
Two goals Moll hopes to accomplish are finding a police chief who is a “transparent, ethical hard worker” and working with the Columbus Division of Police to ensure surrounding areas of the university are secure.
The university area has encountered numerous high-profile crimes in recent years, including a recent death after a man had an over-five-hour-long barricade standoff with the Columbus Division of Police. Moll said the university tries to send out plenty of safety messaging at the semester’s beginning to keep students and parents aware of safety tips and resources.
“Problem is, if they don’t know they’re there, they’re not accessing them,” Moll said. “And so with the help of our communications partners, we try to get those out.”
