MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) – The parents of a slain Auburn University student asked the Alabama Board of Adjustment to award them $1 million Tuesday because they said the university did not provide adequate security.
Jim Burk and Viviane Guerchon told the board that they believe Auburn University’s decision to merge its police force into the city’s department led to inadequate security on campus and contributed to their daughter being kidnapped from a campus parking lot in 2008.
Guerchon said the family visited Auburn two or three times before Lauren Burk enrolled, and no one ever mentioned that Auburn does not have its own police force. Every other university in the Southeastern Conference and all but two other universities competing in the top level of college sports have their own police.
“I thought my child was going to be safe. She lasted six months,” Guerchon said.
Former Auburn Police Chief Tommy Dawson told the board that the merger in 2004 provided more officers on campus who were better trained. He said it ended a territorial dispute between the two police departments about responsibilities.
Dawson became emotional and, with his voice trembling, said not a day goes by that he doesn’t think about Lauren Burk. But he said the Auburn police were doing their job on campus when she was abducted on March 4, 2008.
“I don’t see where we could have done anything different,” he told the board.
Lauren Burk was an 18-year-old freshman from Marietta, Georgia, and lived in a university dorm. She was kidnapped from a campus parking lot at gunpoint, forced to undress and was fatally shot off campus when she tried to escape from her captor. He drove her car back to campus, set it on fire and fled. Courtney Lockhart was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death.
He told investigators that he had been sitting on campus looking for easy prey much of the day, that he left once when he saw a patrol car, and then returned to grab Burk, according to testimony Tuesday.
The four-member Board of Adjustment is scheduled to vote Nov. 12 on whether to award money. If it does, it would come from Auburn University, hearing officer Mose Stuart said. He said a key factor for the board is determining what duty Auburn had to its students and whether that was breached.
State law gives state government and state institutions like Auburn immunity from most lawsuits. Instead, people who feel they have been wronged can seek compensation from the Board of Adjustment.
University attorney John Smith said 85 percent of Auburn’s students live off campus, and it made sense for city police to protect students both off campus and on.
“So the 15 percent left behind are OK to be taken?” Guerchon asked him.
Smith said Lockhart was not a student or employee of the university and had never done anything to draw the attention of university officials.
Jim Burk said the family’s goal is not money, but to get Auburn to provide better security so that no parents have to go through what the Burk family has been through.
“The reason I put $1 million down was to get someone’s attention,” he said.