Harvard campus police held four African-American undergraduates at gunpoint after a false 911 report alleged someone in the room had a gun.
While the campus administration informed the graduating seniors the cops were responding to a hoax, one of the students said the group is “traumatized” by the ordeal. They are also disappointed at how quickly and quietly the school moved past the botched raid without answering their questions.
At about 4 a.m. on Monday, April 3, five armed officers from the Harvard University Police Department banged on the door of Jarah K. Cotton’s suite, located in the almost 100-year-old dormitory Leverett House, according to The Crimson.
Cotton and her suitemates Jazmin N. Dunlap, David G. Madzivanyika, and Alexandra C. René were still foggy from sleeping when the police demanded by force of weapons that all four of them “open up.”
In an interview with The Boston Globe, Cotton said they “were all terrified” and “frazzled” by the events of that morning.
An anonymous caller contacted their dispatch and reported someone was “threatening violence against occupants” of the dorm. Someone from the department called Cotton and René’s phones about 30 minutes before the raid, but because they were asleep. No one answered. The police decided to raid the room.
The officers arrived dressed “in full riot gear” and ordered the four out of the suite, instructing them to keep their hands in the air. They then made the students enter another suite as they searched their space for firearms.
Cotton said the officers immediately pointed their rifles directly at them.
“All I can recall having in my mind is ‘I haven’t done anything,’” Cotton said.
Madzivanyika said the group complied because they didn’t know what was happening, WHDH reported.
When the officers could not find anything after 20 minutes, one came over to the group of Black students and explained it had been a false…
Read the full article here
