‘#BlackUnderAttack’: Arrest of black man by campus cops angers San Diego State black community

Black students at San Diego State University are angry over how campus police handled a young African-American man who allegedly was under the influence of drugs.

On a pair of videos posted to Instagram, SDSU officers are first seen talking to the man, eventually informing him they were placing him under arrest. That’s when the suspect erupts in anger, resisting the cops and screaming profanity along with “I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING!” The person taking the video can be heard exclaiming his incredulity at the scuffle.

The Daily Aztec notes that police said they were dispatched to check out reports of “a gentleman that appeared to be under the influence of potential narcotics.” The reports also indicated the suspect had “jumped a construction fence at the Cal Coast Open Air Theater.”

Police arrested the man when it was determined his “physical symptomatology” was that of a person “under the influence of a controlled substance.”

With the videos online, the hashtag “#BlackUnderAttackSDSU” soon took off with (black) students venting their fury. The African Student Union, already miffed at past actions of the SDSUPD, marched through campus.

“We’ve heard of things like this off-campus, but for it to be on-campus, especially after we had a dialogue about it earlier, it doesn’t make sense,” communications junior, Ceinna Bush said. “We’re mad, we’re angry, we’re sad. It’s just crazy.”

From the article:

Other students saw the video and joined ASU outside of Manchester Hall.

“There’s pros and cons about the video basically because nobody knows what happens,” senior psychology major, Billy Carter said. “They slammed him hard and he yelled, he wasn’t really fighting back because they were breaking his arm.”

After Mays announced at 5 p.m. that he would return with a police statement, ASU students remained outside of Manchester Hall.

“As the African Student Union we would like to address different political issues that concern people of our community and background,” Archangel said. “We understand officers and their protocol but this is a protocol of us as well. This is us standing in solidarity.” …

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“Our main question was why was he being arrested with that level of force,” ASU president, Toni Sparrow said. “Not all of our questions were answered, but once they are, we will be sending out a statement. We don’t disagree with what the officer was saying, we wanted to know why he was arrested in that manner.”

After the protest Viviana Delgadi, a freshman political science major, said she didn’t feel like all of her questions were answered.

“I’m happy the police tried to make the effort to come and talk to the students but I don’t think the questions were very represented of everybody and I think it should have been a little bit longer,” Delgadi said.

Ms. Delgadi also said she changed her mind about the incident after hearing what Interim Police Chief Josh Mays had to say, but nevetheless said the matter “could have been handled a lot differently,” and that the officers “were a little too brutal.”

Decide for yourself: