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KEARNEY — After 44 years without carrying guns, the University of Nebraska at Kearney police now are armed.

One week after fall classes started, on Aug. 27, eight of UNK’s full-time certified Nebraska police officers started carrying Glock .40-caliber weapons, said UNK Police Chief Jim Davis. It cost about $10,000 to equip officers with weapons and for training.

UNK spokesperson Kelly Bartling said, “Our students and our campus community will be safer with armed officers.”

The change was made, Bartling said, after conversations with other police chiefs in the university system in an effort to align UNK Police policies, procedures, standards and equipment with those peer agencies.

“When it came down to the nuts and bolts of it we (UNK Police) were lacking some of those services the others have,” Davis said, which included weapons.

UNK also reviewed its threat assessment team and its procedures, its Concerning and Risky Events team and compliance standards.

UNK’s weapons are the same as those carried by Buffalo County Sheriff deputies and Kearney Police Department officers.

Not everyone is in favor of arming UNK Police.