Friday, March 29, 2024

AdvertiseDonateSubmit
NewsSportsArtsOpinionThe QuadPhotoVideoIllustrationsCartoonsGraphicsThe StackPRIMEEnterpriseInteractivesPodcastsBruinwalkClassifieds

UC students, faculty express views on proposed UCPD policy changes

By Hanna Sato

May 26, 2021 6:32 p.m.

University of California faculty and students raised concerns over the University administration’s proposed changes to the UCPD policies that would expand police power on all UC campuses.

The recommendations include changes to the preexisting Use of Force policy and the introduction of the Body Worn Video, Systemwide Response Team and Concealed Carry Weapons policies to the UCPD Gold Book. The Use of Force policy was expanded to specify when the use of force is warranted, whereas the Body Worn Video policy implements body cameras for UCPD officers and lists situations when they should be activated. The Systemwide Response Team policy creates organized groups in response to crowds, and the Concealed Carry Weapons policy permits retired UCPD officers who meet certain requirements to carry weapons on campus.

Cheryl Lloyd, interim vice president of the UC Office of the President’s Systemwide Human Resources, submitted the proposed revisions and new policies Feb. 5 for a review by UC faculty. UCOP is currently receiving feedback from UC students and faculty until Monday.

These proposals come nearly three years after the Academic Senate and University Committee on Faculty Welfare’s Gold Book Task Force Review in 2018, which recommended a series of revisions in UCPD’s policies, including increased specificity for the Use of Force and Body Worn Video policies. The task force also expressed concern about the University leadership’s lack of involvement in the process of activating a systemwide response team.

The three-year delay reinforced the idea that UCOP did not take the recommendations seriously, said Dylan Rodriguez, a media and cultural studies professor at UC Riverside and a member of the UC Cops Off Campus Coalition. Rodriguez served on the Academic Senate’s Gold Book Review Task Force.

“There was no sense of urgency around it,” Rodriguez said. “And they particularly did not take the criticisms of police presence and police power on the campuses very seriously.”

SA Smythe, a gender studies and African American studies assistant professor, said in an emailed statement that these policies would not change campus policing significantly.

“These changes were posed to give the appearance of progress while maintaining the status quo,” said Smythe, who is a member of the UC Cops Off Campus Coalition. “This is the nature of what we call ‘reformist reforms,’ reforms that maintain the violent and harmful structures that we as abolitionists seek to dismantle and transform.”

Despite concerns that these policies expand police power, campus officials maintain that these changes will improve student safety.

Stett Holbrook, a UCOP spokesperson, said in an emailed statement the University is committed to a secure campus and is addressing campus safety concerns with the new and revised policies.

UCLA Police Department declined to comment on the proposed revisions and policies.

Michelle Ohanian, vice president of the Bruin Republicans, said in an emailed statement that UCPD’s presence on campus is a necessary safety measure and will be strengthened by the new policies.

“These policy changes and proposals were deemed necessary because there is a demand for them by the student body and society at large,” said Ohanian, a fourth-year history student. “To my knowledge, there has not been a particular instance of bad policing by UCPD that would have caused a lack of confidence.”

The proposed revisions to the Use of Force policy expand the specifications listed in the original Gold Book, including letting officers decide the amount of reasonable force and using a list of factors to determine the use of force.

However, the guidelines and conditions proposed for the appropriate use of force continue to pose a concern for members of the UC community regarding the prevention of police violence, Rodriguez said. This is due to the open-ended nature of the policy, stating that it is up to the discretion of the officer to decide when the use of force is warranted.

The recommendations also include the Body Worn Video policy because police departments at UC campuses began receiving body cameras during the 2019-2020 school year.

[Related Link: UCPD implements body camera policy, sparking discussion among student leaders]

The policy requires officers to activate body cameras for 15 policing events including arrests, uses of force and forced entry search warrants. However, the policy also states it is up to the officer’s discretion for when it is appropriate to bypass these guidelines and either activate the body camera in other unspecified situations or deactivate it.

Rodriguez said some people believe the use of body cameras will improve police accountability because it creates an impression that officers will be held accountable if their actions are monitored. However, he said the guidelines within the new policy reduce the likelihood of actual accountability because, much like the Use of Force policy, it is up to the officer’s discretion to active their body-worn camera.

“There’s no accountability for the common instances that we’ve seen all over the country,” Rodriguez said. “When there’s a violent incident, usually against a person of color (and) primarily Black people, in which officers often say ‘Oh, well my body camera malfunctioned. … Oh well, I forgot to turn it on.’”

Emily Luong, the 2020-2021 Undergraduate Students Association Council internal vice president, said in an emailed statement that body-worn cameras do not increase police accountability and instead increase UCPD budgets, which is exactly what police abolitionists have wanted to avoid.

“What we want is money directed away from police budgets and toward programs that support true public safety – mental health, education, and social support systems,” said Luong, a fourth-year communication student.

In addition, the Carry Concealed Weapons policy issues permits for retired UCPD officers to carry weapons on UC campuses if they meet qualification standards, which include authorization to carry a firearm when they were in service and their retirement being unrelated to a psychological disability.

Another proposed policy, the Systemwide Response Team policy, creates specialized response teams for crowd management purposes and outlines the teams’ chain of command. This policy also approves the use of new weapons, including rubber bullets and chemical agents, by the proposed response team.

“The Systemwide Response Team policy is necessary to ensure safety at protests,” Ohanian said. “This does not at all affect students’ ability to peacefully protest. Students should be able to protest because it is their right, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the rights or safety of others.”

Currently, the proposed policy requires the campus chief of police, chiefs’ liaison and SRT coordinators to request an SRT deployment.

Following the announcement of the Gold Book revisions, students and faculty voiced concerns about campus safety and the protection of minority students by signing and releasing two letters – one by the Undergraduate Students Association Council and one by the UC Divest/Invest Faculty Collective.

The UCLA Divest/Invest Faculty Collective said in their letter opposing the policies that the SRT policy was the most troubling of the four revisions.

“Most egregious is the Systemwide Response Teams policy which serves to further militarize our campuses through a UC-version of the National Guard authorized to deploy military-grade weaponry and tactics against the campus community in the name of ‘riot control,’” according to the letter.

Luong said in the emailed statement that the policy changes disproportionately affect certain populations such as students of color, LGBTQ+ students and disabled students.

Smythe said in the emailed statement that these proposed policies disregard concerns about the safety of minority students from faculty, students and campus organizations like Cops Off Campus Coalition. Smythe added that the UC should be dismantling UCPD instead of reforming it.

“Those resources can be re-allocated elsewhere, and can further a more accountable community at UCLA that doesn’t rest on anti-Black, anti-POC, and anti-Indigenous practices such as policing in order to make us safe,” Smythe said.

UCLA sent a campuswide email to students about the Gold Book revisions April 27.

“The majority of students didn’t hear about them until Cops Off Campus published the policy changes publicly,” Luong said. “This lack of transparency, to me, is indicative of an understanding from administration that these changes would be widely opposed by students, faculty, staff, and community members alike.”

Share this story:FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Hanna Sato
COMMENTS
Featured Classifieds
More classifieds »
Related Posts