Governor of Delaware and the House of Representatives expressed anger on Monday when they stopped the team’s bus back to historic black school and acted on behalf of a Georgian security officer searching for student belongings with a drug-sniffing dog.
The suspension was held in April as the Delaware State University women’s lacrosse team had returned home from a match in Florida. The report of the incident was published in the student newspaper last week.
In the statement On Monday, university president Tony Allen said that what began “in the name of a minor traffic violation” was an attempt by law enforcement authorities to “threate student athletes to confess their drug possession.” Stated.
He said the university had contacted the Governor of Delaware, John Carney, and other state authorities to seek a possible reimbursement claim “legally and otherwise.” He said the search did not find anything illegal.
Governor Kearney called the stop video taken by team members “upset, worried, and disappointed” in a statement on Monday. He said his office “does everything we can” to help the university know more about what happened.
In another statement, Delaware Senators Tom Carper and Chris Coons, and their representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, called the images and videos of the stop “very disturbing.” They “strongly support” Allen’s decision to “go wherever the evidence leads” and provided help from their office.
The law enforcement officers involved were part of the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office, said Carlos Holmes, a university spokesman.
Sheriff William Bowman of Liberty County said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon that his office was considering a stop. When the drug detection dog was “warned” by the team’s bus, the agent said he searched the team’s bus and stopped other commercial vehicles that day, including another bus that found the drug.
“I do not exercise racial profiling, allow racial profiling, or encourage racial profiling,” Sheriff Bowman said, adding that he believed the suspension was legal. Still, he said he would like to seek feedback from the team and community on how the sheriff’s office can improve its practices.
Delaware State University has historically been a black college, and according to its coach, Pamella Jenkins, about 70% of the team members are black.
In an interview, Jenkins said the team bus had returned to Delaware from a match in Florida on the morning of April 20, when Georgia police stopped the bus driver. When the driver pulled off the highway exit ramp, a policeman boarded, saying that the bus was driving in the left lane incorrectly.
Within five minutes, she said, one of the student athletes alerted a policeman who pulled a backpack, team duffel bag, and other belongings from under the bus and was tested by a drug detection dog. Two police officers then boarded the bus and announced a drug investigation in an exchange that black Jenkins called “racist motive.”
“When he raised a drug dog, he first went to marijuana, which is typically associated with African-American people,” Jenkins said. She added that the officer was “in a blame tone: he wasn’t asking.”
When a student asked how regular traffic outages escalated to drug investigations, she said, charter buses in that section of the highway are known for smuggling drugs and people. rice field. Jenkins was nervous and scared, but she said she tried to stay calm as the students gathered near the window and looked out and others were shocked. She said she was worried that one wrong word could ignite the situation.
The University Student Newspaper, The Hornet, has published an article about traffic outages by team member Sydney Anderson. Anderson and other team members did not immediately respond to the request for comment on Tuesday.
In the article, Anderson accused police of trying to get players to admit that they had drugs, and she accused them of conducting an illegal search for no possible reason. “The majority of team members have never encountered police, which was a traumatic event for them,” she said.
Hornet also shared a video shot by the player, and if the law enforcement officer had something in his baggage, he said, “You’re probably going to find it? I’m not looking for a bit of marijuana, but if I If we find it, your chaperone will probably be disappointed with you. “
The university’s president, Allen, said the rustication made him “furious” and the school tried to contact Georgia law enforcement authorities.
“For any of us, we should not lose how narrow the line between custom and extraordinary, between humility and exceptional, between security and the victim,” he said. “This applies to all of us, but especially to the color community and the institutions that serve them.”
Alyssa Lucpat Report that contributed.