The Cougar Chronicle

Issue date: 9/8/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Alma Campos CSU police station.

Media Credit: Alma Campos Picture of Douglas Hall where McNeil alleges abuse took place.

Media Credit: Alma Campos Picture of CSU police cars parked outside of the station.

Charges of brutality involving a CSU police officer surfaced this summer following a May incident in which two students were told to vacate a campus building, resulting in the arrest and hospitalization of one of them.

Graduate students Racquel McNeil and Rasu El, both students in the university's African American studies department, were studying May 4 in Douglas Hall when McNeil left the building to make copies at the New Academic Library. McNeil was approached by CSU police officer Tracy Nowell who informed McNeil that the Douglas building was closed and that she would have to leave.

McNeil was asked if she was a CSU student and told to present identification. McNeil said she was without identification that day and at the time had only El's student card in her possession which she had planned to use to make copies.

It was at that time, according to McNeil, that Nowell became suspicious of her presence and told her to leave the university. But as she gathered her things, she alleges, Nowell then began to prevent her from leaving at which point the two women began to tussle.

McNeil alleges Nowell never placed her under arrest, informed her why she wanted her to remain in Douglas Hall or said a word to her as they began to struggle. "She never said a word. She just kept telling me to calm down and that if I would calm down then she wouldn't be touching me," McNeil told The Cougar Chronicle.

McNeil, however, failed to be subdued. Nowell, she claims, then began to choke her forcefully and the officer shoved her knee into her side and back causing bruises and abrasions as the women wrestled on the floor.

El's depiction of the events, however, differ slightly. In his statement to CSU police, he writes that after Nowell ordered them to leave Douglas Hall, she told McNeil that she needed to stay because she had no identification. It was at this time that Nowell began to request McNeil's name, address, phone number and date of birth.

McNeil then became "upset…and the…officer told Racquel if she didn't calm down she would arrest her and that she had all the right to do that. Racquel went to leave; and the officer got in her way. Racquel said, 'I can go; let me leave.' The officer said, 'You're not going anywhere.' The officer then grabbed Racquel's arm, and pulled back. Then they started to struggle," El tells of the incident in his statement to police.

He maintains, however, that the officer overreacted. "We were studying outside of the African American studies department; all she had to do was call one of our professors to confirm that Racquel was a student; and she could see that we had our books there." El also complains that there was no signage indicating the building was closed.

McNeil was arrested and charged with resisting arrest and criminal trespassing following her encounter with the officer. She was later taken to the hospital for treatment of injuries sustained in the altercation. McNeil would later spend days in the hospital for stress-related health effects stemming from the incident, according to her account.

In the following weeks, word of the incident spread among some on campus; and on May 21 members of the Chicago Council on Black Studies, many of whom are CSU professors, met with then-CSU police Chief William Shaw to discuss the McNeil incident. "I think it was a very productive meeting," Jacqueline Bryant, a former co-chair of CCBS and professor of English at CSU, told The Cougar Chronicle.

Bryant and others who met with Shaw reached an agreement that the two groups would help create a question-and-answer pamphlet, detailing the do's and don't's of police interaction while on campus. CCBS, Bryant said, submitted 12 questions to the police department on May 28 regarding, among other things, the meaning of criminal trespassing and the necessity of complying with police instructions without regard to agreeing with those instructions.

Ideally, Bryant said, the questions submitted by CCBS should have come from CSU students, but a sense of urgency caused the group to act soon after the McNeil incident. The CSU police, however, have yet to respond to CCBS's inquiries, according to Bryant.

Shaw, however, said his department never received the list of expected questions from CCBS and therefore could not respond. Shaw, who is now retired, said had his office received such a list, he would have gladly provided the answers necessary to produce a pamphlet. "I remember that; yes, we were supposed to put together a pamphlet, but I never got anything," he said during a telephone interview.

Shaw also disputed any notion that the officer in the McNeil case overreacted. McNeil told The Cougar Chronicle that in her discussions with Shaw following the incident, he told her that Nowell was prone to overreacting. When asked about this statement, Shaw answered, "No, I wouldn't say that; I wouldn't say that at all."

A CSU police investigation found no fault with Nowell's actions. McNeil was later sentenced to community service for her role in the incident.

In June, Bryant invited CSU police officers to speak before her black studies class about how to respond to police officers on campus. Bryant said she repeatedly phoned police officials about scheduling a visit but received no response. Shaw, however, said under his tenure, police officers regularly visited classrooms and were readily available to do so.

Interim police chief, Jim Maddox, said his department is also eager to enter CSU classrooms to talk to students about police interactions. Maddox said his office is preparing to designate an officer to do just that on a regular basis. When asked about creating a question-and-answer pamphlet using the CCBS questions, Maddox said his department had not received any questions from the group but would be happy to respond.

But Bart McSwine, a member of CCBS and a black studies professor at CSU, said the group has submitted the questions to Maddox, but to no avail. "This issue needs to be resolved," McSwine said, adding, "This isn't the only student this has happened to; and if we are not careful it can happen again."

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