ORLANDO, Fla. -- University of Central Florida police are admitting for the first time they made mistakes that led to an officer being shot and killed at the Citrus Bowl. The department is promising major changes.

UCF Officer Mario Jenkins was killed in September after a scuffle with tailgaters. The university now acknowledges Jenkins and his supervisors are to blame.

UCF is long on intention, but short on specifics at this point. It said it changed the way it runs underage drinking investigations at the Citrus Bowl. But said sadly, one of the reasons the campus police department lost Officer Mario Jenkins was because Jenkins did not follow policy.

A cell phone video showed the confusion in the moments leading up to the shooting as plain-clothes Officer Mario Jenkins is seen alone in a rowdy crowd of tailgaters at the Citrus Bowl. Moments after that, Jenkins pulled out his gun and fired it at one of the tailgaters. Then Jenkins was shot by Orlando Police Officer Dennis Smith, who had no idea Jenkins was a UCF officer.

Jenkins' supervisor admitted to having let him go into the crowd without backup, even after telling Jenkins he needed backup.

"It was an error," said UCF Police Chief Richard Turkiewicz. "Major Mingo was distracted over paperwork."

The supervisor never mentioned being distracted, but UCF will not be disciplining him or anyone else.

"There's not a lot you could do to anyone that they haven't done to themselves," said Bill Merck, vice president for administration.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement report said Jenkins had no intermediate weapon, such as a Taser or pepper spray. He had only his gun. The report also said that Jenkins had no radio and that UCF Police Department did not officially alert the other agencies how its plain clothes officers were dressed.

UCF said it is going to address those issues by hiring a consulting group and by looking into the procedures used by the University of Florida and Florida State University police departments.

UCF promised a more detailed plan for major operations like the Citrus Bowl operation and that plan will include close teamwork with all the other agencies working the tailgating crowd for underage drinkers in the future.