Throughout October, students attended community forums organized by the Security Review Working Group to share their thoughts about the potential arming of the American University Police Department.
The forums follow the announcement last fall that the University was considering arming AUPD after a shooting at Morgan State University and were conducted as part of the working group’s overall safety review.
The working group conducted a total of nine forums, each specific to the roles and opinions of people in the University community. Three were intended for students: one for those who believe arming AUPD would be a good idea, one for those who believe it is a bad idea and one for those who are on the fence. The series concluded with a dialogue session open to all members of the community on Oct. 17.
Following the forums, the working group will conduct a survey to better understand the general views of the University community, according to the timeline from their website. The group expects to conclude its report by the end of the fall 2024 semester and communicate its decision to the board and general community in February 2025.
Discussion questions provided by the panelists asked participants to share their views about how changes in practice, especially the addition of firearms, could impact security and the climate on campus and which option they would most like to see implemented.
There are four options for AUPD under consideration: “maintaining the status quo of an unarmed campus police department, equipped with pepper spray and [Armament Systems and Procedures] batons;” “providing expanded less-than-lethal stand-off capability to address armed threats by persons in possession of weapons not involving firearms;” “ability to deploy firearms from police vehicles in threat situations involving weapons” or “arming all officers and supervisors.”
Each forum was moderated by a variety of members of the working group, including Director of Students for Change and Co-President of the Black Student Union Denia Smith, American University Student Government President Arusa Islam and Residence Hall Association President Ava Falkenrath. Working group Chair and Chief Financial Officer Bronté Burleigh-Jones and Phillip Morse, the co-chair of the working group and assistant vice president of university police services, emergency management and transportation programs, also assisted in answering questions from the crowd.
In a message posted to the University’s website, Burleigh-Jones announced the review on Oct. 4, 2023, and said that the process was designed to “collect extensive community input” and “consider potential updates and impacts.”
In February, Burleigh-Jones announced an extension of the review into the fall 2024 semester, as well as the series of forums, which were intended to “facilitate community engagement and input from students, faculty, and staff.” The process has also included a feasibility assessment and an education component.
In support of arming AUPD
Around a half dozen attendees participated in the first student forum, intended for those who support arming AUPD. One student took the opportunity to voice their concerns about the capabilities of AUPD during a potential active shooter situation, saying they would feel safer if officers were trained and equipped to protect students.
A group of students gathered outside the Abramson Family Founders Room in the School of International Service holding March for Our Lives signs and distributing pamphlets. Several minutes into the forum, some of them entered the room and sat at the back. Their presence was organized by Joey Katzenell, MFOL at AU events chair and a junior in the School of Public Affairs, who said that not all the students there were a part of the organization.
“We were all united behind the same idea that we don’t want arms for AUPD,” said Katzenell in an interview with The Eagle.
Katzenell said they are especially worried about the repercussions of a potential change in policy on more vulnerable populations.
“I think it poses a huge threat to students, especially Black and brown students, especially disabled students,” Katzenell said.
Despite their initial worry, Katzenell remains hopeful that the administration will take student feedback into consideration in their final decision.
“I appreciate the fact that they’re taking the time to collect our feedback and to send out a survey,” Katzenell said. “I don’t think they would be taking the time to do all this if they already did make a decision.”
Students see a danger to marginalized groups in arming AUPD
The second student forum on Oct. 9 invited students who believe changing AUPD’s practices is a bad idea.
Burleigh-Jones opened the forum by explaining that everything “[the University] has learned from the forums,” the upcoming campus-wide survey and “the feasibility study,” which will look into the cost and practicality of purchasing weapons and training officers, will develop the report for the working group.
Jonah Barrón, a student at the Washington College of Law, said he was not aware until this forum that President Jonathan Alger would be the one to decide on whether to arm AUPD or not.
“We will share everything we’ve learned in the report,” Burleigh-Jones said. “That report will then go to the senior leadership at the University. Ultimately, the president will make the decision.”
“The fact that I had to wait until October to learn that decision is effectively just unilaterally the president feels like something that the working group clearly knew about and sort of chose not to communicate,” Barrón said in an interview with the Eagle.
Falkenrath and Islam then opened the forum to student comments.
Several students highlighted concerns about the anxiety and fear that an armed campus police force would instill in students, particularly students from marginalized communities. One student cited the example of Gianna Wheeler, who was “forcibly removed from her apartment by AUPD in 2019” during a mental health emergency. Wheeler ultimately sued the University and the two parties reached a “mutual resolution to the lawsuit” in 2022.
“I can only imagine with how many times we’ve seen in the news recently that people with disabilities have died at the hands of police for not complying while experiencing a medical emergency,” said Katherine Greenstein, a graduate student in the College of Arts and Sciences. “That would make me feel much more uncomfortable in the midst of an emergency.”
One student said during the forum that statistics around school resource officers at colleges and high schools show firearms do not prevent active shooters.
Another student highlighted the flaws of the working group’s option three, which gives AUPD firearms, but requires AUPD to keep the firearms in police vehicles. The student cited a national statistic that shows that firearms are stolen from vehicles every nine minutes in the U.S..
The student explained that it would likely take an AUPD officer as much time to retrieve the firearm from their vehicle as it would take a Metropolitan Police Department officer to arrive on campus in the event of an active shooter.
Other students expressed confusion as to why the University would consider arming AUPD when MPD stations and officers are near the campus and MPD officers likely have more experience and training.
One student cited the MPD’s arrest of an individual who “brandished a weapon in [students’] direction” on a University shuttle on April 27, saying that MPD, not AUPD, acted to apprehend the subject.
Several students expressed concerns about how arming AUPD would affect campus protests, more specifically, students’ comfort in protesting.
“The relationship between AUPD and student protesting is bad and it can be improved and it needs to be improved,” Katzenell said. “Arming AUPD would make student organizing extremely difficult.”
Several students voiced frustration regarding a vigil held by the University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine on Oct. 7, at which several AUPD officers approached the vigil equipped with zip ties.
About AUPD’s response to the Oct. 7 vigil, many students explained that arming AUPD would result in some opinions and organizations feeling afraid to protest on campus.
When asked which of the four options they would most like to see implemented, several students stated that they did not agree with any of the options, including AUPD’s current practice, which equips officers “with pepper spray and [Armament Systems and Procedures] batons.”
One student said they would like to see AUPD rely more heavily on de-escalation procedures than on weapons. The student also said that raising awareness among students, faculty and staff on what to do in the event of an active shooter or other security threats would be more helpful, citing the April 27 incident, than giving AUPD officers lethal weapons.
“Right now in the student government ballot, there are two referendums that we have put up, one on divestment, and the second, we will be using as information that will be contributed to the working group,” Islam said in response to students’ saying they wanted a fifth option outside of the four options proposed by the working group.
At that point in the forum, several members of SG, including Senators-at-Large Asher Heisten and Kaiden Ouimet, began to hand out flyers to the students in attendance at the forum, titled “Vote in AUSG Elections: Have a Say in Divestment and Arming AUPD.” The bottom of the flyers read, “This material is for voter turnout and not for any candidate or referendum campaign. Not associated with an AU campus organization.”
Several students said they felt frustrated by the availability of options for students to give feedback or express their opinions on changes to policies such as the decision to arm AUPD.
Kevin McGuire, a graduate student in CAS, said he felt the administration “didn’t anticipate [graduate students] being a part of this conversation.”
“I feel like students have very little power to disagree with anything after a decision has been made,” McGuire said. “If they make a decision on option two, three or four, this will only make students more fearful to speak out against the administration or the people working for them who have guns.”
Another student said that students and the administration should look to George Washington University as an example of what might happen if campus police were armed.
GW’s Board of Trustees voted to arm “20 of about 50 total GW Police Department Officers with 9mm handguns” on April 13, 2023. However, on Oct. 7, GW officials announced they have opened an internal investigation to look into “reports that armed GW Police Department officers carried firearms not registered in D.C. and received inadequate training.”
On the fence
The third student forum, held on Oct. 16, provided more information to those undecided on whether AUPD should change its practices.
Discussion was opened up to the room with only two students choosing to speak on the subject. Panelists asked how arming AUPD would impact the campus climate, with the pair of students responding that any form of arms — including nonlethal weapons — would make them feel incredibly unsafe on campus.
By Oct. 16, University students had already voted against arming AUPD in the SG elections on Oct. 11. Of students who voted, a majority voted “No” when asked if the administration should arm AUPD officers with sidearms, whether to station firearms in AUPD squad cars and to arming AUPD with “less-than-lethal” weapons such as tasers and rubber bullets. Less than half of students voted “Yes” when asked if they trusted AUPD to protect the safety of themselves, faculty, staff and other students.
Bring it all together
The final forum in the series was open to all members of the community who felt they would be impacted by changes to the University’s security measures. A small crowd of students and faculty attended to voice their opinions, many of them against arming AUPD.
Several students said that arming AUPD would make them feel less safe and less confident in campus security.
Another forum attendee explained that they were a neighbor of AU and often brought their children to campus to play on the quad. The attendee said they wouldn’t feel comfortable bringing their kids to campus if campus police carried firearms.
One student raised concern over the lack of information shared with the campus community during the Oct. 14 campus-wide lockdown, which the student said raised alarm among students. This is the second campus lockdown this year, following the incident last April involving an armed individual on an AU shuttle bus.
When Burleigh-Jones asked which of the four options the attendees would most like to be implemented, nearly every attendee said they would like to see a fifth option, one in which AUPD officers have access to fewer weapons and instead the administration focuses on increasing mental health services.
“It’s important to understand that there is a spectrum of items under consideration,” Burleigh-Jones said. “So we’re looking at what it would mean to recruit, retain trained officers, what are the liability considerations? What would it mean to make a change in plan?”
This article was edited by Olivia Wood, Tyler Davis and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks, Sabine Kanter-Huchting and Charlie Mennuti. Fact checking done by Luna Jinks and Hannah Paisley Zoulek.
