Limit University of Kentucky police patrols, make reforms, student group demands
A student-led group wants the University of Kentucky to limit spending on its police force, cut back campus patrols and ban use of rubber bullets, tear gas or military-style equipment.
Furthermore, the student group, Movement for Black Lives University of Kentucky, is pushing for a community oversight committee of students, faculty and community leaders that would review on-campus police actions.
The student group — in partnership with a vocal union of university workers and many of the groups behind Lexington’s larger downtown protests — is also seeking a bevy of on-campus changes to greater support students of color.
“This is the time we have as young people in our communities to really take control and take power of what we want to shape our campus cultures and society to be like,” said Khari Gardner, the UK senior who started the group a couple of weeks ago.
UK officials were quick to point out that the university recently committed to a series of changes that they hope will help resolve racial inequities and disparities on campus. They will have another related announcement soon.
The demands from UK student activists come as universities across the country and state reckon with student demands for universities to either reduce funding for their campus police forces or end agreements with local law enforcement that patrol the campuses. The calls for defunding campus police echo the national and local pushes for greater police accountability that emanated from the protests that sprung up after the deaths of Breonna Taylor in Louisville and George Floyd in Minneapolis.
“We share the goal of creating and sustaining a more just, equitable and accepting campus for everyone,” said UK spokesperson Jay Blanton in a statement. “We hope the students who are asking questions and raising thoughtful concerns will be part of these efforts along with what we expect will be hundreds directly involved in this critical process.”
What’s in the UK police budget?
UK’s Movement for Black Lives’ police-related demands include restricting the department’s year-over-year budget growth, only allowing the department to grow when there’s a large increase in the university’s overall student population. Moreover, the organization wants to prohibit tear gas, smoke, flashbang grenades and rubber bullets; strip the department of military surplus equipment; expand officer training; and decrease the number of officers on patrol.
This year, the university’s police department has a budget of about $4.84 million, according to a budget document obtained via an open records request. About 91 percent of that budget goes toward salary and benefits for the department’s 54 sworn officers and other staff. The remaining funds go toward operating expenses, but the budget document did not detail that spending. The budget document also provided no information on equipment purchases.
Gardner said he took issue with the university furloughing hundreds of employees this spring in an effort to close a major COVID-related $72 million budget shortfall, while not furloughing or reducing the size of the police force charged with protecting a campus with no students. He also said the department hasn’t been transparent about how it spends its money.
Blanton said the university did not reduce the police budget, as funds related to “core imperatives” like utility costs, scholarships and public safety were not cut. Most of the workers furloughed were healthcare workers and most should be back at work by Monday as overall patient numbers rebound with the resumption of elective procedures initially postponed to fight the pandemic.
Preparation is emphasized. UKPD officers receive 20 weeks of Department of Criminal Justice Training at a residential academy and then receive 16 weeks of department-specific training. Blanton said the department has long been on the “leading edge of culture and policy reform within law enforcement.”
“They were, for example, among the first agencies in the state to use body cameras,” Blanton said. “They are continuing with unconscious bias, verbal de-escalation, cultural sensitivity, mental health and autism awareness training programs. They also are committed to continuing and expanding dialogues in the coming year with communities of color and other marginalized communities on our campus.”
Do UK police officers have military equipment?
The student group demands that the campus police force be stripped of gear and weaponry gained through the federal 1033 program that sells surplus military equipment to police forces across the country.
The department has obtained equipment through the 1033 program, Blanton said. UKPD has gotten two Humvees which he said are used “to transport essential health care workers to and from the hospital during inclement weather,” and received 10 rifles which “are only to be used in the event of an active shooter situation on our campus,” Blanton said.
The Humvees cost $82,122 and the rifles, which shoot 5.56-millimeter rounds, cost about $7,490, according to a 2014 database from the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that focuses on criminal justice reporting. That database was created from data made public by the Department of Defense in 2014.
United Campus Workers of Kentucky, a union of university employees, is partnering with the Movement for Black Lives along with the Lexington Housing Justice Collective.
Julia Miller, a UK graduate student and member of the union’s steering committee, said the removal of the 1033 equipment is very important to the union.
“Having military-grade equipment on campus is a grave concern for us,” Miller said, adding that UK is not far from the University of Cincinnati where Samuel Debose, an unarmed Black motorist, was shot and killed by a campus police officer in 2015. The officer, who shot the man with a pistol, was later fired and charged with murder. After two deadlocked juries, the charges were dismissed.
Miller said the union has decided to follow the Movement for Black Lives’ lead on campus reforms related to students of color because “it’s a Black-led organization and that’s absolutely essential that we’re taking our initiative from them.”
What should UK police do on campus?
Gardner said he sees UKPD as “an occupying force in a learning environment.”
The group demands that officers be stationed primarily in the campus police station and not patrolling campus, and the organization wants a reduction in the number of officers that carry deadly weapons.
Sexual assault and theft are the two main crimes that affect college campuses, and the goals of campus police should reflect that, Gardner said.
The main purpose of UK police should be to support the Violence Intervention and Prevention Center — commonly known as the VIP Center — an on-campus service that supports those who have been impacted by sexual or gender-related interpersonal violence, Gardner said. That office has assisted students who have faced sexual assaults better than the campus police, he said.
UKPD announced a string of on-campus sexual assaults last fall but never announced when those crimes were solved, Gardner said. At the time, campus leaders attributed the rise in reports to a greater willingness among victims to come forward and speak with authorities.
Blanton said the police department works with the VIP Center among its many other responsibilities and it’s working to expand its services for victims.
“They work in close partnership with student and academic support, institutional equity and our VIP offices to support victims of sexual assault and harassment as well as leading all of our crisis preparedness and response efforts,” Blanton said in a statement. “UKPD has also this past year created a special victims unit that will include an officer who specializes in investigating interpersonal crimes of violence. UKPD also will be hiring a victims’ advocate to assist in support for survivors of these crimes.”
Demands go beyond campus policing
Gardner said the group has other demands beyond campus policing. Among them are naming after Breonna Taylor the green space that will take over the site where the Kirwan-Blanding dorm complex currently sits; increasing the amount money for scholarships for students of color and women; expanding funding for diverse student organizations; and reviewing and removing all on-campus symbols that may be offensive to students of color.
UK President Eli Capilouto recently announced that after years of protest and debate, the university will remove a mural from the 1930s that depicts Black workers — possibly slaves — planting tobacco. The university has yet to release more details on the plans.
In addition to the mural, Gardner said there were other issues, including Rupp Arena. The arena is named after Adolph Rupp, the man credited with building the school’s basketball dynasty.
Debate has raged for years over whether Rupp was racist. Many have criticized his reluctance to recruit Black players while other teams around the country were integrating.
The university is taking steps to address some concerns, Blanton said. In mid-June, administrators announced a series of plans to improve diversity and addr
“I was a little confused on what the end goal of that report was going to,” Gardner said. “I know with all the goals that they’ve stated, more or less, it just seemed like they were trying to deflect and distract and give open-ended commitments. I mean a cultural ecologist isn’t needed to tell me if a person did something wrong in the past.”
The university will also create a Percent for Art fund that will take 1 percent from every capital project that costs more than $5 million. Money pooled in the fund will be used to purchase more diverse art.
In addition, students will be required to take online diversity and inclusion courses before coming onto campus this fall. By next month, the university hopes to earmark more money to increase diversity among faculty and staff. By December, the university hopes to implement training for faculty members and teacher’s assistants on cultural proficiency and handling classroom discussions on race.
A university panel is tasked with evaluating the on-campus culture and reconsidering portions of the Student Code of Conduct to reflect a more diverse campus.
Next week the university will outline a proposed framework for the plans and will ask for volunteers and nominations.
“Importantly, these are not committees to simply discuss and debate. Ideas and dialogue are necessary, but these workstreams will have deadlines for concrete recommendations and actions plans. And many of the initiatives have fast-approaching deadlines,” Blanton said.