ITHACA, NY – Activists on the Cornell University Student Government are not happy that the majority of their council allowed police officers on campus to remain armed.
Because of their displeasure, they have allegedly threatened those that voted down the measure to disarm the police.
We are joining a resolution calling for the disarmament of the Cornell University Police Department. Our hope is that the Student Assembly will vote to protect marginalized students and reduce the chance of police brutality occurring on this campus.
— Cornell Progressives (@cuprogressives) November 19, 2020
In a student council vote on November 19, activists were hoping to pass a measure that would have forced campus police to disarm. Activists around the campus and on the council were outraged when they learned their referendum to disarm the police failed by one vote, 15-14.
After the vote failed, a member of the student government posted all the names who voted against the measure on social media in a forum for students of color.
After the names were released, many who believed that officers should be disarmed started bombarding those who voted against the measure with threats and harassment.
Joe Anderson, a former student council member, called on those that believe the police should be disarmed to physically fight those that opposed the measure. He said:
“Two things about the SA are true. First, the best people at Cornell sit on the SA. Second, the worst people at Cornell sit on the SA.
“So, fight the worst of them and cherish the best of them. And when I say fight, literally fight them, I can’t stand those ugly people.”
Cornell University activists are threatening student government representatives who voted against disarming the campus police.
Via @chrissyclark_ https://t.co/eKu5VMBWQg— Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) November 24, 2020
One member of the student council who voted against the measure, Zion Sherin, faced direct attacks.
During an online Zoom meeting, Sherin was attacked by some of those that were watching, including one that asked for Sherin’s address so he or she could physically harm Sherin. According to the Washington Free Beacon, that person said:
“Zion, I will beat your ass. Please put your address in the chat.”
The person who recorded the Zoom session did not want to reveal her name for fear of backlash.
She told the Washington Free Beacon that she started recording the session when someone in the group announced that everything in the chat would be deleted after the session ended.
Student activists from the Abolitionist Revolutionary Society held a protest outside of the campus police department when it was announced that the measure to disarm the officers failed. The group called on students to recall those student council members who voted against disarming the police.
The student group had hoped that they could disarm police following the death of George Floyd while in police custody in May of this year. Proponents also believe in the false narrative that officers kill more black people every year than they do white people, something that has been verified as a false statement repeatedly.
Cornell University is not the only campus that has worked to disarm their campus police or remove them altogether. Students at Northwestern University demanded their police force be dissolved and took to rioting when the University announced they would not abolish the police agency.
One college, Johns Hopkins University, seems to be caving to pressure from the students in their demand not to create a campus police department. The University recently announced that they will delay the creation of the police department for at least two years.
Students: It’s time to disarm police because… feelings.
June 22, 2019
Let’s just disarm everyone, even law enforcement. While this may sound far-fetched, this is exactly what students at Portland State University are asking for.
Students rallied at a recent board meeting. Olivia Pace, one of the students who addressed the Board of Trustees, said:
“Police with guns are a ticking time bomb. We feel like the longer the university pushes this off to more and more committees and more third parties, the issue will just kind of dissolve.”
This round of debates started almost a year ago after Jason Washington, a concealed carry license holder, was shot and killed by PSU police.
Washington, whose blood alcohol level was 0.242, was trying to help break up a fight. While being pulled away from the fight by officers, he went to the ground and a pistol fell to the ground.
Having already been told that he had pulled the gun on the crowd once, officers ordered him to leave it on the ground. Not heeding their warnings, the officers told him to drop the weapon or they would shoot. Washington did not listen and was subsequently shot to death.
“We have been saying that this is dangerous, that someone will get killed, and we were right,” said one student.
The university commissioned a study that found more than half of the students and faculty at PSU were in favor of disarming officers. That same report recommended against it.
Once again, officers doing their job seem to be the issue to the public. The drunk guy holding a gun and refusing to follow police directions obviously had nothing to do with it.
So, in response, let’s go ahead and take weapons away from the very people charged with protecting us.
What if this is simply a call for campus police to be disarmed? Maybe the expectation is for Portland police to respond as needed.
How long would it be before these same students were asking the City of Portland to disarm their officers as well?
While we cannot know Washington’s intent, what would that evening have looked like if the PSU officers had no way to defend themselves or the general public in the area?
Beyond that, what would PSU look like if police were disarmed. What chance would they stand in not only crime prevention, apprehension and conflict resolution, but in keeping the peace in the most basic sense?
Law breakers are already brazened in their interactions with cops, but how much more so will they be if officers can literally do nothing but threaten to arrest them?
What if this is simply a call for campus police to be disarmed? Maybe the expectation is for Portland police to respond as needed.
Why do people believe that criminals will simply heed the verbal direction of a gun-less cop? That has proven to be unsuccessful.
So, while we are at it, let’s take away uniforms and handcuffs.
Maybe we should take lights and sirens off their patrol cars.
Maybe we should turn crime fighting into a giant game of freeze tag.
If the criminal’s friends can touch them after they are frozen by an officer, they are free to run again.
Story after story come to light of people claiming that the criminal problems in our society stem from having armed police. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
IF we have the number of violent crimes that we have while our LEO community is armed, what do those statistics look like if they resort to having nothing but their voices at their disposal?
But why stop with campus cops?
Let’s go ahead and strip weapons from local, state and federal officers and agents. Maybe we remove all weapons from the military.
Then we can just settle all conflicts with a friendly game of rock-paper-scissors. If there is still a dispute, maybe we have to go to best two-out-of-three.
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