No Hopkins Police

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7 Reasons For Rejecting a Private, Armed Hopkins Police

  1. Accountability is a fallacy
    • Hopkins Police will report only to Hopkins Administration. People living around Hopkins, who will be policed by the proposed JHPD, and Hopkins students and faculty will have no authority over the proposed police force.
    • There is no elected officials or electoral process to oversee police activities or possible overreach.
    • All misconduct by the police force will be considered by the Internal Review Board
    • The Board mostly consists of other Hopkins cops. They have to approve any disciplinary measure.
    • The “Accountability Panel,” which JHU proposed, has no authority over questions of misconduct. Its authority is limited to issues like training.
    • Hopkins has already a bevy of armed officers and local sheriffs serving the university. The difference is that the new force will have immunity from public accountability.
  2. Police brutality and police murders are extensive
    • On a national level, police now kill many more people each year than the number of people lynched annually during the Jim Crow period of U.S. history
    • About 1,100 people die at the hands of the police each year. That’s about 3 people every day
    • if we look at murders committed by strangers (someone unknown to the victim), 1 in 3 of these murders are committed by police
  3. Hopkins has a history – and current reality – of racism:
    • For seven decades after Hopkins School of Medicine opened, no Black student was allowed to enroll.
    • Hopkins has engaged in extensive urban removal, forcing large numbers of Black families out of their homes in neighborhoods surrounding the Medical School.
    • Hopkins continues to have a small percentage of Black students and even smaller number of Black faculty.
  4. There are precedents of racist abuse by private university police:
    • In July 2013, Tyrone West, unarmed Black man, was stopped for a traffic infraction.
    • He was called the N-word, ased, maced again and again, and severely beaten by multiple officers with fists, batons and boots.
    • The assaulting officer called Code 13 “Officer in Distress”
    • Though about a half-mile from Morgan University’s campus, Morgan cop David Lewis responded. When he arrived on the scene, he sat on Tyrone West, who was already handcuffed and severely injured, as Tyrone breathed his last breath.
  5. See also who Hopkins security considers a suspect:
    • Hopkins Students Against Private Police has looked up Hopkins’ official statistics about “suspects” detained by Hopkins security during the span of one recent year.
    • 75.9% of “suspects” were Black. 1.9% of “suspects” were white. And 22.2 of “suspects” had no racial background reported
  6. Real accountability will be to the Hopkins Board of Trustees:
    • The Board of Trustees is composed of wealthy individual representing major banks and other big businesses.
    • JHU president serves at the pleasure of the Board of Trustees and reports to them.
    • The private armed JHPD will ultimately serve the needs of the super rich, not students, staff or nearby community members
  7. Only very few other universities have a private police force:
    • Private police departments were started in the late 60s
    • Their main purpose was not safety. Their main purpose was to give college administrators a means of using the threat of organized violence to control students involved in on-campus struggles for civil rights, and in struggles against the War in Vietnam.