San Jose State students, community members and local advocacy groups attended a police forum hosted by SJSU UPD on Thursday expressing various concerns regarding the university’s police department.
Before the forum at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, students and advocacy groups including Human Empowerment and Radical Optimism (HERO Tent), marched through Tower Lawn calling for the defunding of SJSU UPD.
HERO Tent organizer Jesi Faust said the initial goal of the protest was to express “concrete demands that are designed to decrease police violence for the protection of Black people in the surrounding neighborhood and on campus.”
“Our ultimate goal is to protect people in San Jose, who aare oppressed by our white supremacist, capitalist system, and work on creating a community of care where we can actually provide safety for each other,” Faust said.
After a few minutes, Charlie Faas, SJSU Vice President of Administration and Finance, asked the protesters to join the UPD forum in the library.
Lieutenant Eric Wong, SJSU Detective Sergeant of Investigations and Crime Prevention presented information during the forum and helped facilitate questions from attendees.
The presentation included an overview of the various UPD roles and future plans for the department.
Michael Carroll, who started as SJSU police chief in January, shared updates regarding UPD projects from this year.
The UPD presentation detailed proposed future investments to improve the university police department including approximately 20 different projects, including revising the mission statement and core values, the campus firearm policy and creating recruitment flyers for UPD’s 16 vacant positions.
Carroll added that the UPD’s campus firearm policy hasn’t been updated since 1969.
Carroll said specifically, the department will analyze “who can and cannot carry firearms on campus.”
Some attendees said they disagree with campus police carrying guns, saying the presence of firearms during the presentation event made them feel uncomfortable in the meeting room.
UPD Sergeant, Chris Zonsius, said his armed uniform is not meant to be intimidating, it is meant to protect the community.
“It’s a safety issue for officers, instances especially in California where officers are being killed randomly on the street,” Zonsius said. “We obviously want to give ourselves an ability to protect ourselves and the community.”
Advocacy members argued that their approach to a safer community is having unarmed officers patrol, rather than officers with guns.
“When you're asking officers to be unarmed, how would you deal with someone who’s violent with a knife or a gun, how realistic is that,” Zonsius said.
Sadie Stoner, SJSU sociology sophomore and exchange student from England, said during the forum that she is uncomfortable with the American police because she observed officers always carry guns.
“This isn’t normal, this is absolutely wild, I come here and I'm scared, like there's other resources, there's other ways,” Stoner said.
In response to Stoner, Carroll explained that hosting the forum was one of the first steps for UPD to hear from the community and consider ideas for improvements in the department.
Carroll also mentioned the Task Force for Community Policing and Safety report, which was released a month before his arrival, which details policing data including some aspects of the UPD budget.
The initiative was created by former SJSU President Mary Papazian in July 2020 in an effort to “examine and begin to address systemic racism,” according to the task force website.
Faust and several other community members said they believe SJSU needs to consider diverting money from UPD to invest money into other student-related issues including student homelessness.
“Would that money be better spent on housing students and actually having them in a safe, secure place to live? This is what we mean by building community alternatives to the police,” Faust said during the forum.
Officers mentioned that according to the task force report, the UPD budget is less than 1% of SJSU’s overall budget.
Several audience members, including Faust, said they still disagree with the amount of money allocated for the university police department.
“We're not interested in more money going to the police department,” she said.
“We think that the money would be better spent in creating alternatives that are not connected to police,” Faust said.
Faust said she believes the university should invest in mental health professionals as alternatives to police.
“If you all want to work with mental health professionals that's great,” she said. “But the money that's going to these frankly ridiculous ideas could be spent on actually providing service.”
Wong said the department is not opposed to receiving help from outside sources such as trained psychologists, because UPD officers are not trained to deal with individuals struggling with a mental illness.
“We're not psychologists, we don't have doctorates,” Wong said. “If I could have a doctor with me for a medical call, I'd rather have the doctor there. We are trying to better ourselves.”
