The University of Pennsylvania Division of Public Safety has acknowledged the occurrence of an incident involving College senior Dimitri Dube and several University of Pennsylvania Police officers in which Dube says he was unfairly targeted -- at least partly because of his race.
According to Dube, in the early morning hours of Jan. 19, he was stopped by University Police on his way home from the 7-Eleven at 42nd and Walnut streets -- having been first asked to leave the 7-Eleven at 38th and Chestnut streets by officers who said the store clerks did not want him there.
The Division of Public Safety announced its finding last Friday in a statement that also recognized the need for changes within the department to make members of the minority community feel more comfortable with campus police and security officers.
The investigation concluded that Dube had acted lawfully. The investigation also concluded that the Penn Police officers and the supervisor on duty had acted within the guidelines of the Department's policies and procedures when they stopped Dube.
"We're moving forward now," Dube said of the investigation's findings. "It's about more than just the incident and taking steps to make sure that it doesn't happen in the future."
Dube did not accuse the officers of either physical or verbal abuse, though he did believe race to be the predominant reason he was stopped.
On Jan. 19, Dube lodged a complaint concerning this incident via an e-mail sent to the constituents of several Penn organizations and officials.
Following the release of Dube's e-mailed complaint, several other minority students came forward saying they had also been unfairly targeted by Penn Police and security officials.
Many in Penn's minority community were dissatisfied by the Division of Public Safety's statement regarding the incident because of its failure to address the reasons Dube was stopped the second time by Penn Police and because they feel the problems made evident by the Dube incident were insufficiently addressed by the statement.
The Asian Pacific Student Coalition, Black Student League, Latino Coalition and the United Minorities Council issued their own joint statement yesterday concerning perceived problems with the Public Safety statement.
The groups' other complaint was that the statement only recognized the UMC's participation in a Jan. 22 meeting to discuss short-term and long-term steps to improve interaction and communication between the two groups. Roughly 22 minority student leaders attended that meeting.
"All of these organizations have equally contributed toward the effort to address the issue of racial profiling at Penn," the groups' statement said.
As a result of that meeting, a Police/Minority Relations Forum will be held tonight in Houston Hall. In addition, police officers plan to attend select UMC meetings throughout the year and examine methods to open up the complaint process to restore the community's confidence in the outcome of the process.
"We are very positive about the interactions that we've had in the past week or so with several minority leaders," Vice President for Public Safety Maureen Rush said. "At the forum [tonight], we believe we will embark on a positive course to further breach any gap between the police and the minority community."
The Division of Public Safety acknowledges that minority students, particularly minority males, may feel that police, as well as the public at large, scrutinize them more closely than other individuals on Penn's campus.
Last night, the Undergraduate Assembly passed a resolution calling for a civilian review board for the UPPD, one of the requests Dube and others had previously made but did not receive in their previous meeting with the police.
As a result of Dube's experience and concerns about the visibility of plain clothes officers, Chief of Police Tom Rambo is reviewing the use of plain clothes officers and has issued new guidelines.
Rambo has released an order that requires plain clothes officers to ask a uniformed officer to make all initial pedestrian investigations whenever possible. All officers must also complete special training addressing issues such as safe and courteous interactions with the community.
Rambo will also review all pedestrian and vehicle investigative reports to ensure compliance with policies and procedures of the Penn Police department.
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