Generally I would be willing to let something like that slide. Within the circle of people & groups who would refer to "Duke Police", I take it to mean the group. The additional problem particularly with "police" in the term is the word itself invariably indicates more than one.
But within this article he used both "Duke Police is..." -- singlular -- and "Duke Police were..." -- plural. So it's inconsistent at least. The use of the plural, if you didn't see it written out, might lead you to believe that he was talking about individual policemen rather than somebody in particular, i.e., the chief, representing the organization as a whole.
Yah my advice to the writer and people in those circles would be to start calling it DPD (unless that's how they refer to the Durham PD) or something like that. Nothing to get to overworked about IMO.
"Is it appropriate grammar for the university president to say "Duke Police is..."?"
____________________________
the actual quotation was: "well, boys (speaking to reporters), the doook PO-leece IS gunna take care a these ol' nooooo black panthers. (i'm jes' sayin')".
the editor of the paper cleaned it up a bit.