Detective Pat Bush is a UTA alumnus and graduated with a Master of Arts in 2023. Bush spent over 16 years as a senior police officer in Euless, Texas.
It’s a typical workday for Detective Pat Bush.
Bush, 49, starts his mornings by reviewing patrol reports and emails before checking the news and scanning social media for issues that might affect students. As a threat assessment investigator, he then coordinates with campus partners and connects students and employees with support for safety concerns ranging from mental health crises to domestic violence.
And throughout the day, he logs into UTA’s subreddit several times.
Known on Reddit as u/UTADetectiveBush, Bush has become a familiar presence in campus threads as he answers questions about issues such as traffic flow, campus hecklers and potential immigration enforcement presence. Sometimes, he joins in on lighter posts, including cracking jokes about filing a theft report “because someone had their heart stolen.”
A student posted
about a missed connection near the Engineering Research Building
parking lot …
Girl near ERB Parking Lot
Question
To the really pretty girl with curly brunette hair I ran into
near University Center and ERB parking lot around 12:30 that
stopped me to compliment me on my circuit, hi I’m the Asian guy
that was in the blue polo. I thought you were really cute.
I was in a rush so I didn’t think to ask for your number, but
hopefully you see this!
⬆ 168
⬇ 💬 35 ⤴ Share
… and Bush
saw an opportunity.
Looks like I’ll have to take a theft
report because someone had their heart stolen…
⬆ 76 ⬇ 💬
Reply 🏅 Award
⤴ Share …
His replies often carry humor, but the tone can shift quickly when students raise safety concerns or questions about university policy.
“I want people to be able to be like, ‘I can joke with Detective Bush, and he’s going to laugh with me, but I know that if it’s something serious, that he’s there, that I can reach out to him and approach him,’” Bush said in an interview.
Over the past two years, students have increasingly name-dropped Bush in threads and tagged his account in posts about issues ranging from donation scams to suspicious activity near campus apartments, often treating his replies as reliable within discussion threads.
Some have even compared his look to actor Christoph Waltz, a joke Bush responded to with “…………” followed by a comedic faux-Shakespearean monologue.
“Your account was the first one I was looking for when I came down to the comments,” one Reddit user wrote in response to a post about suspicious behavior on campus.
Bush is aware of the rare relationship he has developed with students online, he said. He understands that many college-aged students have complex perceptions of law enforcement, particularly at a university like UTA with a large international population.
“It’s been nothing but positive,” he said. “It’s been a very valuable source of communication, of information and, at times, intelligence.”
Third baseman Pat Bush, right, tries to tag out a Howard Payne runner caught between third and home, as catcher Justin Batson looks on during April 8, 1997, game.
Shorthorn file photo / Brooks Whittington
When Bush opened his Reddit account in 2023, he was already used to working with students.
He returned to UTA in his current role in 2020, decades after attending the university himself and playing baseball on campus in the ’90s.
Before that, he spent more than 16 years as a senior police officer in Euless, Texas, including three years as a school resource officer at Hurst-Euless-Bedford KEYS High School. There, he worked closely with students navigating safety concerns and personal challenges both inside and outside the classroom.
During that time, he also worked with a crisis response team and began monitoring social media to identify potential threats — experience that now informs his work at UTA.
That shaped how he approaches policing today. Rather than focusing on arrests, Bush said, his role as UTA Police’s liaison to the university’s CARE Team centers on identifying concerns early, understanding what is driving a situation and connecting students with support before problems escalate.
“If you don’t find the reason for the grievance or the threat, you’re never going to really solve it,” he said. “You can’t arrest your way out of a threat situation.”
Hello!
The SAR center will evaluate your needs and diagnosis and come
up with a plan, kinda like a 504 plan if you’re familiar with
those. You would probably need some kind of diagnosis record; if
you have a previous 504, that might work. I would just advise you
to call and talk to them.
(817) 272-3364
https://www.uta.edu/student-affairs/sarcenter/requesting-services
Make a plan to contact them. The procrastination is a classic
symptom of ADHD.
Let me know if I can be of any assistance.
-The Detective Bush 🕵️
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⬇ 💬 Reply ⤴ Share …
Taelor Faulkner, CARE Team case manager, said Bush’s online presence helps identify concerns early as campus partners meet weekly to coordinate support ranging from academic flexibility to off-campus referrals. His tone online also makes students feel comfortable reaching out for help, she said.
“He’s always in the know about stuff — Reddit, as we know — just kind of seeing what’s going on with students,” Faulkner said.
Bush’s presence on Reddit began with a suspicious-person case posted in the university’s subreddit. He suggested responding directly on the platform, and Police Department leadership supported the idea.
“It was just prudent for me to make a forward-facing like, ‘Hey, boom, this is me. Feel free to contact me,’” he said.
Students responded almost immediately.
Bush said Reddit’s anonymity can make students feel comfortable approaching him, whereas they might otherwise hesitate to contact the police directly. He doesn’t attempt to identify users unless a situation involves serious safety concerns.
“Because I now have established the Reddit community, I don’t want to jeopardize that,” he said. “It’s become such a valuable source of information and availability that students can have. And also, we have fun.”
“
It’s become such a valuable source of
information and availability that students can have. And also, we
have fun.
Threat assessment investigator Detective
Pat Bush
”
UTA Police Chief Kim Lemaux said it’s important for her department to stay aware of how the campus community communicates, and Bush’s presence on Reddit reflects that effort. Before adopting the conversational tone that now defines many of his posts, she said, he checked with leadership.
“He’s got a good sense of humor with the people he works with, with his kids, with his family, and he said, ‘May I use that?’” Lemaux said. “And it was like, ‘Yeah, you just need to be professional about it.’ Because, to me, there’s not anything unprofessional about humor.”
Bush said he has no plans to stop posting on Reddit. When no major updates are needed, he sometimes joins lighter conversations — including posts about the campus cat Microwave and a possum he jokingly named Hotplate — partly to remind students he is there if they need help.
When an alumni asks whether UTA police
are going to respond to the squatter situation near campus cat
Microwave’s house …
When unfamiliar slang appears, he looks it up.
And when necessary, the account becomes part of his investigative process.
Last September, a viral TikTok trend showed first-person videos that appeared to depict people urinating at recognizable spots on college campuses nationwide. The trend eventually reached UTA.
After being tagged on Reddit, Bush reviewed the TikTok footage frame by frame to identify the location, using nearby construction at the Life Science Building and matching the wet sidewalk to when sprinklers had recently run to narrow down the timeline.
He then reviewed security camera footage, which showed the culprit: A student had been spraying water from a bottle rather than urinating. Because no offense had occurred, Bush clarified the situation for students the way he often does — directly on Reddit.
“So…to the Ronaldo, Manchester United jersey-wearing person that sprayed water out of a water bottle and then left in the red small SUV with someone else, yes it is all on video,” he wrote.
The mystery — and the rumor — soon dried up.
@DangHLe