More than a week has passed since New York State troopers were invited onto the SUNY New Paltz campus by university president Darrell P. Wheeler and his administration to arrest SUNY New Paltz students and others who had erected an encampment on a grassy hill on the public campus.
The actions of the administration and the state police have resulted in intense scrutiny.
“It was a horrific display of violence that disrupted the campus and community peace in a way I have never witnessed in my entire adulthood, and I say this as someone who was kicked down the steps of the Capitol in DC by the National Guard while protesting the war in Iraq,” wrote New Paltz mayor Tim Rogers: “I do not support riot gear, K-9 units, the physical removal of protesters.”
On Monday, May 6, county executive Jen Metzger released a statement which characterized the state troopers’ response as “disproportionate” in light of the actions of the students themselves who were engaged in a peaceful protest.”
Citing “the use of excessive force in the police response, activated by state officials to remove demonstrators,” 122 members of the SUNY faculty and staff also weighed in. The academics and their affiliates said the police actions had “raised grave issues of freedom of speech and assembly.” The signatories alleged that “police violently broke up a peaceful gathering in a public space on campus.”
Initial local response to SUNY mass arrests is largely negative
On Wednesday, May 8, the organizing committee of Local Progress for New York, an organization representing elected officials in 85 jurisdictions, called on the attorney general’s office to open an investigation. City of Kingston Common Council alder Michele Hirsch is a member of that organizing committee.
President of the Ellenville NAACP Maude Bruce on Friday, May 10 requested a county investigation into the events.
Ulster County sheriff Juan Figueroa has come to the supported the state police. His statement justified the trooper response by noting that “the demonstrators consisted of students and non-students not affiliated with the college, as well as non-residents of Ulster Figueroa said that “numerous complaints were received from non-participating students and their parents, expressing the demonstrators were disrupting their education.”
Figueroa, an ex-state trooper, said a joint command center was established, at the request of “the administration” involving the SUNY New Paltz University Police, New York State Police, Ulster County Sheriff’s Office, and New Paltz Police Department.
Arrests were made of 132 individuals “without resorting to pepper spray and tasers,” said Figueroa, and “batons were displayed but not used to strike individuals” during the arrests. He alleged that during arrests unidentified protestors had retaliated by “throwing glass bottles at officers, injuring one trooper who required hospitalization.”
The administrations of other colleges in the region such as Vassar and Bard have managed so far to avoid calling state troopers to arrest students engaging in peaceful protest.
President Wheeler’s latest statement read in part: “Among my responsibilities in this moment is to hear your voices, to open my head and my heart to better understand the pain and trauma many have experienced these past few months and particularly over the past few days .… These are opportunities for me to learn about where you sit with the anger, pain and hurt that you are feeling, and reflect on how we have arrived at this point.”
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