School normalizing ‘overt militarization of campus,’ activist group says
Arguing increased police presence is a threat to campus safety, some Johns Hopkins University staff and students, along with community groups, are up in arms over the school’s plans to grow its police department.
The Johns Hopkins Police Department intends to grow its workforce to 100 employees — a significant increase from its current staff of 16, according to The Johns Hopkins News-Letter.
“We do not believe that Johns Hopkins is entitled to answer questions about public safety or provide solutions to safety because everything points to their presence being a root cause of unsafety both on campus and in the city of Baltimore,” Teachers and Researchers United wrote in an email to the school newspaper.
“Policing reduces community trust in institutions. It hinders collaborative public health efforts and instead prioritizes punishment over addressing some of the root causes of crime: poverty, lack of support services, and unemployment,” the graduate workers union wrote.
Similarly, Vice President of the Black Student Union Ty’Shera Mintz told the newspaper, “student voices were so blatantly ignored.”
“I don’t even feel anger anymore, just a deep disappointment that Hopkins has never truly provided students of color with the safety, solidarity, or understanding we deserve,” she stated.
“I can only hope Hopkins has enough dignity left to stop harming the very community it claims to support,” Mintz stated.
The Hopkins Justice Collective, a student activist group, also condemned the police department for making the community feel unsafe.
Expanding the police department is another part of JHU’s ongoing efforts to “gentrify the city,” the group wrote.
The department’s “100 armed, private police officers present a threat to the lives and safety of every person in their jurisdiction — with no recourse for their violence,” the group wrote.
It also questioned why JHPD officers are “authorized to carry riot gear.”
“By keeping the student body in the dark, the University attempts to normalize the overt militarization of campus and Baltimore City,” HJC wrote.
Further, HJC raised concerns about the JHPD working with immigration authorities to detain international students, citing examples like Florida International University, where campus police and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have joined forces to enforce immigration policy.
Branville Bard, the chief of police for the JHPD, responded to these concerns, stating officers cannot “tell ICE the location of individuals.”
The department is unable to “assist ICE agents, except for very limited circumstances involving human trafficking, life safety or anything involving the service of a warrant.”
He also stated that when the department reaches 100 employees, the officers will not flood the campuses. Instead, 12 to 16 officers will be divided among the three campuses, patrolling around the clock.
“Unlike [Baltimore Police Department], which runs from call to call, the JHPD has nothing to do but serve this community,” Bard stated.
In addition, the JHPD is committed to following guidance for university police departments published by the American Civil Liberties Union, with an emphasis on “hold[ing] individuals accountable,” he stated.
For years, several organizations and Johns Hopkins students and staff have actively opposed the university’s private police department through protests, disruptions of public meetings, and legal action, CBS News reported.
The “Coalition Against Policing by Hopkins” sued to challenge the agreement between the Baltimore Police Department and the JHPD, which sets jurisdictional limits, assigns call responses, and decides when BPD takes charge of investigations. CAPH is a group of over a dozen organizations calling on the school abolish its police force, according to the coalition’s Instagram.
In 2022, protesters halted two legally mandated town halls intended to discuss the police force’s formation before its establishment.
MORE: Students protest as Johns Hopkins U. begins forming police force
IMAGE CREDIT AND CAPTION: Protest signs reading ‘defund the police’ and ‘abolish police’ in Chicago; Motion Loop/Shutterstock