Students will scrutinize the Defund letter and answer questions about the claims made for defunding the university police. Students must answer three questions from each case featured, and develop their set of three questions for the last claim of “over-policing” at SJSU.
Review:
This is Scrutinization Report on Letter to Defund University Police Dept.
1. Make sure you offer a paragraph on your bias about the letter. (How do you feel about the letter? What is your reaction to it?).
2. Answer three (blue) questions from each section: Johnson event, Guzman event, Chong event. Your answers must be in complete paragraphs related to your overall report. (The blue questions are listed in the PDF [lecture]. Make sure you cite your sources).
3. Indicate three questions you found that will show your ability to scrutinize the content you are reading (over-policing) in this paragraph. Tell me why you are asking these questions and where you might go looking for answers. (Come up with your own questions [scrutinize the information in the paragraph]. Make sure you cite your sources).
4. Rewrite the Defund Letter excerpt based on your scrutiny. Take out the incendiary, the outlandish, the hyperbole, the exaggerations, and make it better. (Now take into account your scrutiny and rewrite the portion of this letter in a manner that is more balanced and less biased towards eliminating UPD; in a way that may allow for reforming UPD, but in a collaborative fashion).
Letter defunding UPD:
…At San José State University, our University Police Department has a
demonstrated history of violence and failure to act in the best interest of
the community they are sworn to serve and protect. The California State
University Police Departments were established as a result of fear
associated with civil rights demonstrations and revolts in the late 1960s
and 1970s. Before the California State University Police Department came
about, night watchmen and security guards patrolled campuses. However,
since the mid-1970s, the University Police Department patrols the campus
using armed officers 24-hours per day. While this has had both positive
and negative impacts on the larger student community, we believe that
over-policing exists on our campus as evidenced by several events in
which the San José State University Police Department used excessive
force and failed to respond appropriately in encounters with historically
underrepresented members of the community. There are three specific
examples of this at San José State University over the past decade.
Johnson Event:
The death of Gregory Johnson Jr. in 2008 was a huge blow to the Black campus community. His death at the Sigma Chi Fraternity house was ruled a suicide by the University Police Department, but the majority of students, Mr. Johnson’s parents, and the campus community felt that the police response sign letter failed to achieve justice for Mr. Johnson’s death and to acknowledge the value of his life.
Johnson Blue Questions:
Is the UPD responsible for reporting on the value on
someone who died at SJSU?
Should the department have done a better job at communicating
with the family through the entire process?
Can we find any media content of the department’s failure to acknowledge
the death of Mr. Johnson?
Guzman Event: In 2014, Antonio Guzman Lopez Jr. was killed at the hands of the San José State University Police Department. The initial police report asserted that the use of deadly force was justified. However, body camera footage (that was only recently
released after nearly 6 years of organized effort by the victim’s family and community activists)
confirmed that police officers discharged their firearms at Guzman Lopez while merely
holding a knife and exhibiting no threatening advancement or aggression towards the officers.
One of the involved officers currently works as a District Attorney in Yolo County and the other
remains employed with the San José State University Police Department.
Guzman Blue Questions:
Why was Mr. Guzman merely holding a knife? What kind of knife?
Should the officers have been fired? For what?
Should Mr. Guzman have been taken into custody by other means?
Chong Event: And in 2016, Philip Chi Chong was beaten by a San José State University Police Department officer who responded to a call in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library. The officer was eventually fired, but the stain of the incident remains.
Chong Blue Questions:
Should the department have done more in this case?
Does the author believe Mr. Chong should have been compensated and/or made whole
for his injuries?
Did the department not fire the officer soon enough?
