Never mind how stupid this sounds. Never mind how much students today are afraid of mass shooters. Portland State U students have decided they want their campus police disarmed.
KGW8 TV reported,
Portland State University students rallied at a Thursday board meeting, calling for campus police officers to be disarmed.
“Police with guns are ticking time bomb,” said Olivia Pace, one of the students who spoke in front of the Portland State University Board of Trustees.
Students in favor of disarming campus police held signs and spoke at the board meeting. They said they believe it has taken far too long for university leadership to take action…
At Thursday’s board meeting, multiple students spoke directly to trustees, voicing their frustration with the lack of decision making on the issue.
“We feel like the longer the university pushes this off to more and more committees and more and more third parties, the issue will kind of just dissolve,” said Pace.
Earlier this year a report, commissioned by the university, found that more than half of students and faculty supported disarming campus officers. That same report also recommended keeping campus police armed.
A press release from PSU said the board did not make any decisions on whether to disarm campus officers. PSU’s Interim President, Stephen Percy, said he will take time this summer to review campus safety and make recommendations to board members in the fall.
This idea has come around before in various colleges around the country. Students somehow think they will be safer if police are unarmed.
Really? And what happens if a criminal with a gun comes onto the campus. Will the Campus police tell them to drop the weapon or they will tell the dean? Or their mommies?
Last year PSU officers shot and killed Jason Washington – who was a legal gun carrier that happened to drop his weapon as he was trying to break up a fight. The Campus Cops testified:
When Washington got up, the officers say he was holding the gun in his hand.
“I’m screaming, like, begging really – for this guy to drop his gun,” Dewey told the grand jury.
Both officers said they told Washington to drop the gun. Then they said he pointed it in their direction.
“In my mind, I’m like thinkin’ I’m gonna be shot right there, and I fire a couple rounds,” said McKenzie. “I see him fall to the ground. Uh, when I see that, I saw firing. I, my next thought process is if he’s wounded, he can shoot at us again at the last know location we were at.”
That testimony was confirmed by a Portland Police forensic technician who was called in to examine the body camera video of the shooting, slowing it down and enhancing the video to see whether Washington pointed his gun at police.
Video shows PSU officers fatally shooting man; grand jury report says the gun was friend’s
The technician, Portland Police Bureau officer Anthony Eugenio, showed the grand jury that Washington’s right arm was extended in front of his body with a black object in his hand, consistent with a firearm.
When asked if he believed that Washington pointed the gun towards the officers, he said that is “correct.”
A grand jury cleared the two Campus police and based on the testimony it seems that by using their service revolvers the two campus police saved lives (including their own)
Even so, the story of Jason Washington was a tragedy. But the students think the campus police officers are “dangerous” because they carry guns—and they are dangerous to students who point a gun at them.
How many of these students worry about a mass shooter, armed robber, a rapist with a gun, or any other kind of gun-wielding criminal gets onto the Campus? How many of them would be quickly shot dead if their campus police were unarmed? Who would stop a shooter? They are valid questions, ones that the “social justice warrior” crowd ignores.
Much of this post was first seen at Conservative Firing Line
