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GREENSBORO - The recent fatal shooting of an N.C. A&T senior at an off-campus apartment has the Greensboro Police Department looking to expand the territory covered by campus police departments.

Wider patrols could make a growing population of off-campus students safer, police Chief Tim Bellamy said Wednesday.

"It's at the point where we're going to have to look at expanding their role in the mutual aid agreement," Bellamy said.

By law, campus police have the authority to work on property owned by the university that employs them and on public roads that run through or are immediately adjacent to university property.

Mutual aid agreements are contracts between police agencies defining the role each can take in cases when jurisdictions could overlap.

The Greensboro Police Department has such agreements with both A&T and UNCG campus police, said Assistant Chief Gary Hastings, commander of the department's patrol bureau.

The agreements allow campus police officers to take police action outside campus property if they are off campus in the course of their normal duties and a crime occurs in their presence.

But these agreements could be revised to include expanded authority to patrol in student-occupied housing that's not on university property, Bellamy said.

"We as a police department have to cover a lot of territory and respond to a lot of calls," Bellamy said.

An A&T student spoke during the public comment period of Tuesday's Greensboro City Council meeting, asking the city to do more for student safety in the wake of two shooting deaths at off-campus homes within the last year.

Dennis Hayle, 22, was walking on a breezeway between two apartments at Campus Courtyard about 3:35 a.m. on Jan. 25 when he was shot and killed.

Two other men were injured after someone standing in the parking lot shot into their vehicle at the same complex a week earlier.

Police haven't made arrests in either shooting.

Last April, A&T student Derek Carl Eaddy Hodge II was shot and killed in his Kay Street home.

In October, police, A&T officials and local property managers met to talk about the safety of off-campus students.

On Wednesday, officials at A&T said they could not answer questions about the meeting.

A&T police said they could not release any information on current patrols or their conversations with property managers without university permission.

After the October meeting, many of the property management companies hired private security guards to patrol their apartments, Bellamy said.

Pickering and Co., the company that manages Campus Courtyard, employs a security guard for the apartments, according to the company.

Hastings has asked officers to spend more of their time patrolling the area around Campus Courtyard, a typical measure following any violent crime in the city.

Staff writer Joe Killian contributed to this report.

Contact Sonja Elmquist at 373-7090 or sonja.elmquist@news-record.com