Students say IUPD incident 'resolved'

Students who were mistakenly handcuffed and searched after a Sept. 18 dance at the Indiana Memorial Union are disappointed with the results of an IU Police Department investigation of their cases. \nBut the students are aware officers were following IUPD protocols and expected an internal investigation to recommend no action against the officers involved.\n"I expected this to be the outcome," said junior Kenneth Williams, a student who filed complaints against IUPD. "It isn't realistic to think an internal investigation within the IU Police Department would reveal any misconduct."\nSenior Leila Price and her friends were leaving the Indiana Memorial Union after an Alpha Phi Alpha dance early in the morning of Sept. 18. Suddenly, they heard yelling about a gun. They got in their car in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation parking lot, but just as they were buckling their seatbelts, red and blue lights started flashing behind them.\nPolice were responding to a \nreport of a man carrying a gun outside the party.\n"They can't be talking to us," Price said she thought at the time, according to an official complaint filed with the IUPD.\nBut they were. IUPD officers removed Price, Williams and seniors C'iara Fossett and Christopher Rice from the vehicle at gunpoint.\n"They took me to the nearest grass area and put me face down in the dirt," Williams wrote in his formal complaint.\nThe students were repeatedly told to "be quiet" and "shut up" while they were searched without explanation, according to the complaints. After police failed to find a weapon on any of the occupants of the vehicle, Price and her friends were released without an apology, according to the complaints.\nAfter being urged by IUPD officials, the Black Student Union and the IU chapter of the National Panhellenic Association, the four students filed formal complaints against IUPD, alleging officers treated them unfairly.\n"The actions of the officers adhered to the training they received," said IUPD Lt. Jerry Minger of the incident. Minger said the police department wishes "that incidents like that didn't occur," but that when officers receive reports of weapons, they take the reports seriously and respond with the information they have.\n"We were pointed out. We didn't know why," Price said in an interview.\nRice added they were "harassed for no reason," and said he believes the police used racial profiling in identifying the suspects.\nPrice also said race might have been a factor in the search. She also said she believes there is a problem between IUPD and the black community.\n"It seems as though there always a conflict or a contradiction between us," Price said.\nEven a month after meeting with IUPD Capt. Keith Cash, Price said there are issues yet to be settled.\nThere are "little things that have build up over time," Price said. \nPolice shut down the Sept. 18 party in the IMU after two officers were shoved while removing unwelcome guests.\nEric Love, adviser to the BSU and director of the Office of Diversity Education, said he is aware the police responded using preset protocols, but said he still isn't sure the response was appropriate.\n"From the outside, it still really looks like it was excessive -- I'm not sure I could imagine the same imagery with white students on the ground," Love said.\nWilliams agreed.\n"At the very least, I don't feel guns would have been pulled as quickly on two white men walking with two white women in the same situation," he said. \nPrice blames IUPD for the incident in the School of HPER's parking lot, saying officers didn't react quickly enough to problems and that the dance could have continued if officers responded to troublemakers before it got out of hand.\nRice said he doesn't dwell on the incident a lot.\n"The only time I think about it is when people bring it up," he said.\n-- Staff Writer James Klaunig Jr. contributed to this report.