By Bailey Hendricks
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
Concerns about racial profiling, potential police brutality and campus isolation from Baltimore’s urban minority community dominated the first panel discussion on a proposal to allow The Johns Hopkins University to establish a police force.
Johns Hopkins President Ron Daniels stressed the importance of a forum and community conversation because of failed efforts to win outright support from Maryland lawmakers. Legislation to create a sworn police force on campus has been tabled, he said.
“As that idea was sent to Annapolis, and as we opened up discussions on and off campus, we obviously saw a lot of questions, heard lots of questions, consternation, concerns, about exactly what it is we were proposing, the rationale for what we were doing, how we can ensure that whatever we were doing was in alignment with constitutional obligation,” Daniels told a panel of police and security experts from various states.
“… it was clear that we didn’t have the support within Annapolis and clearly hadn’t done the work we needed to,” Daniels added.
Before the session, a coalition of 15 student groups, called Students Against Private Police (SAPP), passed out flyers to anyone entering the doors to the event. Reasons for the groups’ opposition to a campus police force were outlined in the flyer: “disproportionate police targeting of African-American community members, students, faculty, and staff,” “lack of transparency and prior community engagement” and “selective usage of crime data by University administration.”
“Being a black student on campus means that it is assumed by law enforcement that you do not attend this institution or are simply up to no good,” the flyer said, attributing the comment to Chisom Okreke, president of the JHU Black Student Union.
“Partnering with the Baltimore Police Department, arguably one of the most corrupt police department in the country, shows a complete disregard for students of color on this campus who would otherwise be brutalized if they lived just a few blocks down the street.”
Johns Hopkins currently has about 1,000 security personnel who act as the eyes and ears for the campus, said Sue Riseling, head of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, one of the panelist. But she stressed the security force has no police authority.
“Security officers cannot carry weapons. They cannot make arrests. They cannot confront an armed suspect,” Riseling said. “But what they can do, is they can be great eyes and ears. They can report with their security radios into the dispatch center, and the police can then find their back up.”
Panel moderator Lawrence Jackson, an English and history professor at JHU, said he was skeptical about a police force because of personal experiences with police brutality.
“Although I have many childhood friends who have gone on to careers in law enforcement here in the city, “ Jackson explained, “what happened to me as a teenager and young adult made me suspicious of and hostile towards police. My hostility has eased, but my suspicion has remained.
“For me, at a deeply reactionary level, I find it difficult to resolve problems by implying more police force,” Jackson said.
Maureen Rush, with the police force at the University of Pennsylvania, argued in favor of a campus police.
“Universities have a higher standard, actually, than municipal policing,” Rush said. “In that, you know, when I was a Philadelphia police officer, I knew different things that were going on in the businesses, et cetera, but I didn’t wake up at 3 in the morning and worry about business tax, whereas in a University, we’re responsible for your life safety.”
Leonard Hamm, director of Public Safety at Coppin State University, said the West Baltimore university campus is surrounded by three police districts with a fully operating sworn, certified, armed police force. He stressed that an important part of positive policing experiences is establishing relationships.
One way Hamm said Coppin State exercises positive policing is by allowing students to “see the police, to touch the police as a real person.”
“Now to me, what that says is, 21st century policing is all about building positive relationships,” said Hamm. “I found out that all of my years in this craft that you can have all the strategies and all the stuff you want, but if you don’t establish positive relationships, it’s not going to work.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that rules without relationships equals rebellion,” Hamm said.
Community members, students, and alumni voiced concerns about how a police force would influence student life and the neighboring communities.
The Rev. Donte Hickman, pastor of Southern Baptist Church, which operates in several locations with five services on Sunday and more than 3,000 members, voiced concerns about the neighboring communities of Johns Hopkins feeling excluded from the campus.
“I want to say emphatically, that I, we, support the university policing for Johns Hopkins and with the power to make arrests,” said Hickman. “But I think also simultaneously, what has to be done is an infusion of research and resources to the very troubled communities and neighborhoods that surround Johns Hopkins so that the community doesn’t continue to feel that it is a walled-off, gated palace.
Hickman added, “the community, from my conversations, wants to welcome that resource into our communities for public safety and amenities within the neighboring communities.”
Al Robertson, a 1973 Johns Hopkins graduate who described himself as a “lifelong Baltimore” resident, disagreed with the idea of a private police force.
“Forty-some years, Johns Hopkins Hospitals put no resources into the community around it, and that community went down,” Robertson said. “Forty years, and then when resources were brought in, people were moved out. It’s a falsity to be sitting and talking about policing when the entire city of Baltimore needs a public safety plan.
Robertson added, “You’re not immune to the things I’m not immune to. I walk these streets every day. I worked these streets when I was 14 years of age, as a community organizer. The things I saw 50 years ago are still going on today.”
Racial bias could come with having a police force on the JHU campus, Robertson stressed.
“The reality of my life, has been, whether I was here at Hopkins, being put face down by the police here, even though I was on the basketball team, they didn’t know me,” said Robertson. “I wasn’t supposed to be on this campus. I still get young people talking about that to this very day.”
However, Cedric Alexander, the deputy mayor of Rochester, N.Y. insisted that Hopkins deserves its own certified police force.
“I think what you want, and I truly believe what you deserve, should you go in that direction, is a certified police department that’s well-trained, and one that also understands the culture of the university itself,” Alexander said. “It is not in the municipal police department; it becomes your police department.”
Okreke said the coalition of students garnered more than 2,400 signatures from students, faculty, and community members opposed to the idea. More than 100 students rallied and marched through Hopkins’ Homewood campus last March, he said.
Two more forums and community conversations are scheduled: One at the 29th Street Community Center, 300 E. 29th St. at 6 p.m. on Nov. 13 and the other at the same time on Nov. 26 at 901 N. Milton Ave.
Correction: The first version of this story incorrectly reported that another forum on this issue was scheduled for Nov. 14 at the Johns Hopkins Community Center. The meeting is actually scheduled for Nov. 13 at the 29th Street Community Center.