Woke Brooklyn College that banned campus cops from carrying guns forced to call for help during active shooter threat
Brooklyn NY Feb 20, 2022
Brooklyn College’s woke president has banned campus police from carrying guns and during a recent active shooter threat the school was forced to call for help from other CUNY schools which still allow armed patrols.
Top administrator Michelle Anderson, formerly a Yale Law school professor who specialized in rape law, yanked the Glock-19 pistols from peace officers on the Flatbush-Midwood campus in early October last year after a school official said she was ‘triggered’ by the sight of a female campus security officer wearing a firearm.
‘It is all somewhat ironic because this woman peace officer had been personally authorized to carry her Glock on school grounds by Anderson herself several years ago,’ a source told DailyMail.com.
On February 3, the school issued an ‘active shooter’ threat and at least 10 peace officers from five other institutions were called to respond to the shooting while on-campus security were dispatched to collect their locked up guns from lockers.
While the threat was not acted on, the new edict raises questions of how the school can ensure the safety of students on campus in a city where gun crime has risen 30 percent year-on-year, according to the latest NYPD crime statistics released on Wednesday.
In Brooklyn south alone, where the college is located, gun crimes have risen a staggering 111.1 percent year-on-year.
At least nine institutions of the 25 under CUNY control continue to allow armed patrol guards, including City College of New York in Manhattan, Bronx Community College, Kingsborough Community College and Staten Island College.
Earlier this month, two unarmed campus cops at Virginia’s private Bridgewater College were shot dead when a former track star, 27, opened fire on them.
John Painter, 55, and J.J. Jefferson, 48, were gunned down after confronting a suspicious man stalking near Memorial Hall on the campus of the small college in the Shenandoah Valley at 1:20 p.m.
The suspected shooter was identified as Alexander Wyatt Campbell, 27, who fled the scene before being hunted down at a nearby waterway about 40 minutes later. Multiple firearms allegedly belonging to Campbell were recovered, with weapons found both on and off campus, officials said.
Shortly after the October ‘no gun’ policy at Brooklyn College was instituted, Anderson participated in a Zoom meeting with campus administrators, faculty and students with the goal of revamping campus safety by eliminating police involvement and without armed security .
‘She is all about wokeness,’ a CUNY campus police supervisor, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, said.
Shortly after Anderson’s disarming edict was handed down, on October 21, there was a shooting just off campus in which four people were wounded.
‘Please be cautious when coming to or leaving the Campus,’ a text alert to students and staff said.
Although the shooting was off campus, the warning underscored the hazards of the urban campus, especially in light of the city’s rising crime rate.
The union officials who represent the campus cops acknowledged that there was a ‘departure’ in status for their members but offered a guarded response.
‘Although it is the prerogative of the college president not to utilize the full measure of protocols within the campus security system set up by CUNY, all is well until something bad happens,’ Gregory Floyd, president of Local 237 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said.
‘Then, the responsibility of that decision also falls on the president — and CUNY as well, for allowing such a departure.’
Each armed peace officer earns about $50,000 annually and has undergone 50 hours of firearms training, the source said.
No Brooklyn College students were hurt in the off-campus shooting, but other colleges have not been so lucky when it comes to violent crime.
More recently, in early December 2021, a Columbia University graduate student, Davide Giri, 30, a Ph.D. candidate in computer science who was attending the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, was stabbed to death.
On December 11, 2019, Barnard College student, Tessa Majors, 18, died after she was fatally stabbed by three teenagers during an armed robbery in nearby Morningside Park.
More recently, in early December 2021, a Columbia University graduate student, Davide Giri, 30, a Ph.D. candidate in computer science who was attending the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, was stabbed to death about two blocks from his apartment building, not far from the college’s Upper Manhattan campus.
And this year marks the 15th anniversary of a mass shooting on the campus of Virginia Tech in which 32 students were gunned down by one of their classmates.
About 600 peace officers are employed by CUNY throughout the entire university system, but only about 100 are authorized to carry guns while patrolling those schools that permit an armed security presence. Most are in uniform, although a small number of armed campus cops do occasionally patrol in plainclothes.
Despite Floyd’s statement and claims by multiple sources who spoke to DailyMail.com, a spokeswoman for Brooklyn College insisted that armed CUNY peace officer have never been allowed to patrol the campus while armed, but keep their firearms locked in a campus security office.
‘The safety of the students, staff, and faculty in our campus community is of the utmost priority at Brooklyn College and our excellent public safety team ensures this every day.
‘Public safety officers have never been permitted to carry a weapon while on campus patrol. Weapons are secured and brought out in emergency situations. Authorized administrators have always kept firearms on their person while in their secured offices, but they do not patrol the campus.’
One veteran CUNY security official sharply disputed the accuracy of the Brooklyn College spokesman’s statement.
‘It’s an absolute lie that authorized Brooklyn College peace officers were previously not allowed to patrol while armed,’ the official said.
Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and author who is an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, was flabbergasted by the decision to strip guns from trained law enforcement personnel for no discernible reason tied to campus security objectives.
He suggested that Anderson, Brooklyn College’s president — who enjoys a chauffeured vehicle driven by a campus security peace officer, as do all senior-level CUNY executives — was advocating an indefensible policy that was not rooted in public safety.
‘Once again, we see those with school-owned vehicles and private chauffeurs making security decisions for the rest of us.
‘If Brooklyn College thinks their students will be safer with no cops around, go ahead. God forbid something happens. I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong end of that lawsuit,’ he noted.
