On April 13, 2018, Harvard University Health Services received a call about a black male Harvard student who was intoxicated and in need of urgent medical care. The student’s intoxication likely occurred during Yardfest, a time when many student party and use illegal substances. About 30 minutes later, officers from the Cambridge Police Department arrived and surrounded, tackled, and punched the disoriented student — a senior at Harvard originally from Ghana — as he screamed for help. A video which showed the police punching the student as he was pinned to the ground, and that the student was naked and unarmed, would later emerge. The CPD later claimed that he had clenched his fists, made aggressive moves towards the officers, and resisted arrest, but multiple eyewitness accounts contradicted these claims. After the injured student was removed from the scene, a pool of his blood remained on the street; firefighters who arrived on the scene after the incident cleaned up the blood with bleach and water.
This instance has caused great pain and distress on campus, and with it has come a series of difficult conversations about police brutality and the role Harvard played in this situation. There are two central takeaways from the event that occurred, and from the debate that has occurred in its aftermath: this event was a result of failures in Harvard’s emergency response infrastructure and the policies and decisions that came with it, and secondly, the actions of CPD on that night constituted police brutality. Both points are evidence of larger problems in Cambridge and across the country, and they are both inexcusable.
According to Harvard’s Amnesty Policy, “Any student may bring an intoxicated or drug-impaired friend to Harvard University Health Services or to a hospital, or seek assistance from College residential life staff or HUPD, and by doing this, neither they nor the friend will face disciplinary action from the College for having used or provided alcohol or drugs.” And beyond the statement itself, there is an unwritten but widely understood message from the university that HUHS and HUPD are resources available to help keep students safe, and that if they are contacted students can expect protection from them. In this incident, however, these institutions failed entirely on that front, exposing a Harvard student to the brutality that occurred.
When HUHS was called, they did not order emergency medical care to come to the scene, as would be appropriate when a mentally-impaired individual is in need of assistance. Instead, they chose to call HUPD and did not send an ambulance. But HUPD officers did not arrive on the scene until after CPD had arrived and brutalized the student. They learned that he had eventually been placed into an ambulance but never even saw his face.
According to a HUPD representative, the location of the incident is outside of HUPD’s jurisdiction, and HUPD was “stretched thin” during Yardfest. This answer points to larger, unacceptable institutional failures. Harvard students are given the impression that HUPD—not CPD—will come to their assistance if they require any help from law enforcement on campus. In subsequent discussions among students it has become clear, however, that Harvard has not effectively communicated to students where HUPD does and does not have jurisdiction; any limitations to their ability to respond to students in the immediate Harvard Square area are functionally unknown to students.
This failure in communication on Harvard’s part played a large role in the occurrence of this incident, an issue that has caused students harm in the past and will continue to harm students in the future if not rectified. And the community is left to wonder why HUPD did eventually arrive on the scene if this area is indeed outside of their jurisdiction, seemingly contradicting their claims regarding the scope of their authority. Furthermore, HUPD’s claim of being understaffed during Yardfest is unacceptable; Yardfest is one of the biggest events held on campus annually, and the university should have planned for this event adequately in order to ensure student safety.
Beyond its infrastructural flaws, Harvard also failed to effectively provide clear and objective information to students in the aftermath of the event. The official statements released by the university in the days following the incident were vague and did not give the full details of the events. In subsequent meetings with black student groups and the larger community, Harvard officials also failed to provide clear answers to students’ questions and clarifications. Harvard’s failure to sufficiently inform students about the incident and its lack of transparency confused and frustrated Harvard students struggling to react to the painful and alarming incident, leaving students to their own devices to piece together what had happened.
And beyond all of these shortcomings, it must be made clear that CPD’s actions on that night constituted police brutality. Even in their own statements on the incident, CPD has admitted to punching the student five times, and a video showing them brutalizing the student has been circulated online. Their explanation for punching the student after he was already restrained, namely that it was in an attempt to unpin his hands so that he could be handcuffed, has no grounds in protocol or precedents, and the absurdity of their rationale has been insufficiently acknowledged in conversations on campus. It is hard to believe that there is any possible explanation for an unarmed man’s blood to stain the sidewalk, and no response from CPD has even begun to reconcile the result of the incident.
Some individuals have suggested that the student’s intoxication and public indecency somehow excuse or even justify the response of the CPD officers. But white and other non-black students have behaved and continue to behave in a similar manner without facing the same consequences, showing a clear double standard. No one ever deserves to be brutalized by individuals employed to protect them. This incident is evidence of larger, longstanding problems with both CPD and American police forces regarding racial bias and police brutality.
In light of the problems that this incident has highlighted, Harvard students have been forced to reconsider the rights that have been promised to them by their university—to protection and amnesty. Harvard must acknowledge its role in exposing one of its own students to this brutality, and the university must make changes to ensure that this never happens again. CPD and police departments across the country must also work to eliminate racial bias in their policing practices so that these horrific events do not continue to occur, in Cambridge or anywhere. No excuses can be made for the continued brutalization of black bodies in America.
Chimaoge Ibe wrote this article, and Akshaya Annapragada contributed.
Image Source: flickr/ Tony Webster