The University of Michigan recently increased its police presence following the Feb. 13 shooting at Michigan State University “out of an abundance of caution,” as noted by the U-M Division of Public Safety and Security in a Feb. 14 press release. The announcement has been met with mixed responses from U-M students and faculty, making it clear that not everyone feels safer with more police on campus.
In a Feb. 14 statement, University President Santa Ono wrote about the increased police presence.
“Support resources are available on campus for students, faculty and staff,” Ono wrote. “You will see an increased safety and security presence from our Division of Public Safety and Security.”
Communication to the campus community did not outline exactly how many additional DPSS officers have been deployed or what other specific precautionary measures have been taken on campus in response to the tragedy at MSU. In an email to The Michigan Daily, Melissa Overton, DPSS deputy chief of police, said those are not typically details the department publicizes when determining security needs.
“DPSS does not provide specific details related to staffing numbers,” Overton wrote. “Each DPSS department director determines staffing needs through evaluating risk, community needs, calls for service, special events, and other factors.”
Bryan Roby, chair of the U-M Police Department Oversight Committee, shared that some students had reported to the PDOC about feeling more secure on campus following the increased police presence, but approximately the same number of students felt uncomfortable with the change.
“Some did say that they greatly appreciated that there’s been an increased presence on campus in response to MSU but I will say that (perspective) seemed to be in the minority,” Roby said. “But not a significant minority. It was (close to) even.”
Less than 24 hours after Ono’s statement, Public Health researcher Peter Larson wrote in a tweet that he didn’t believe increased policing was the right response.
Two days after the shooting, thousands of U-M community members gathered on the Diag to mourn the lives lost and honor those affected by the tragedy. According to Roby, the PDOC heard from a number of students who were concerned about the presence of plainclothes police officers at the vigil.
“Some of the students had comments particularly about the vigil,” Roby said. “There was some complaint about police officers being there in plain clothes while wielding guns. They felt significant discomfort because it could’ve been anyone given that they were not in uniform.”
In an interview with The Daily, Rackham student David Helps, chair of the Graduate Employees’ Organization Abolition Caucus, a group that advocates for redirecting campus police funding to support the students and community, said he feels like an increased police presence are often how institutions respond to a tragedy or other perceived threat to public safety. Helps said he believes more cops is not always the answer to the problem.
“This is the United States,” Helps said. “We’ve seen the only response after a tragedy like this … is more police, more law enforcement. I think we should also be a bit critical of that, based on the fact that that doesn’t make everybody feel safer.”
Education professor Charles Davis, who specializes in issues of race, racism and systemic oppression, told The Daily he would encourage people to consider how those disproportionately affected by discriminatory policing may feel about the increased police presence.
“Essentially, police actually make many people feel unsafe,” Davis said. “We know for sure that those who are most vulnerable to police violence, which includes racially minoritized folks (may feel unsafe). Black folks in particular (are) those who experienced emotional distress, (as well as) Queer, non-binary and trans folks.”
For instance, Black Americans are twice as likely as white Americans to be fatally shot and killed by police officers.
There are a significant number of students who identify as a racial identity other than white. Helps said their views and experiences related to policing should also be considered when making decisions about public safety and security on campus.
“There are students and other people on campus, instructors that have experienced racial profiling or harassment, or come from communities where the police are not seen as a reliable source of protection,” Helps said. “I think those people and their voices also need to be heard right now to those matters.”
Davis acknowledged that some people might feel safer with more police on campus, but reiterated that it’s important to acknowledge the safety and experiences of all campus community members when making decisions about University safety.
“I think we’re all socialized in relation to policing differently,” Davis said. “I think there are certain constituencies who absolutely will feel safe with the presence of police and those constituencies consistently are those who have been defended and protected by police and that’s primarily white folks, white institutions and white property holders, and those who are in service of those interests.”
Education graduate student Jarell Skinner-Roy is a research associate at the Campus Abolition Research Lab, which looks into how to make college campuses safe for all students. In an email to the Daily, Skinner-Roy wrote that campus police have not been found to prevent mass shootings at schools, citing a study published by the American Medical Association.
“Not only (does) data show that police enact disparate harm and violence to racially minoritized folks, but the data also suggests that police do not prevent crime nor do they prevent mass shootings,” Skinner-Roy wrote. “For example, a recent study that examined almost 40 years of K-12 school shootings found no association between the presence of police and the deterrence of violence. They did find that police presence was associated with increased casualties during these incidents. The research is clear on this when it comes to colleges and universities as well — campus police do not prevent mass shootings.”
Similarly, a New York Times analysis of shootings from 2000 to 2021 in the United States found that most active shooting attacks during that time ended before police arrived on the scene. Skinner-Roy said he was frustrated with the notion that increased policing is the only way to prevent violence.
“It is understandable that people continue to be fearful and demand immediate action,” Skinner-Roy wrote. “That said, it is extremely frustrating to once again see these tragic incidents being used to justify increasing police presence on college campuses.”
Skinner-Roy echoed Helps’ sentiment on campus safety and said he believes universities should especially listen to students who are marginalized during times of uncertainty, rather than immediately turning to increased police presence.
“All colleges and universities need to listen and truly hear the call for change from a large segment of folks, many of whom are racially marginalized,” Skinner-Roy said. “Research shows that increasing security presence does not create a safer campus and only increases the possibility of further harm to those who are already vulnerable to state violence.”
Skinner-Roy also said he believed redirecting funds to counseling services and other student support networks and investing in an unarmed emergency response team would be effective non-police methods of improving campus safety.
“In order to truly cultivate a safer and more secure campus, one important step is for institutions to stop spending an exorbitant amount of funds on policing and redirect those funds to services designed to support and affirm students, such as counseling services, sexual assault prevention, Trotter, the Spectrum Center, etc.,” Skinner-Roy said.
Davis said there is no universal solution for improving safety on university campuses in the face of a national gun epidemic, as every campus community has its own unique needs. According to Davis, any potential solution needs to come from the community and be one that will make as many people as possible feel safe.
“I don’t want to provide a sort of a prescription of what can be done,” Davis said. “But what we’ve seen, in terms of what people have been asking for, is that we stop over-relying on policing as the end-all, be-all of what we consider when it comes to safety … For us, what we think about when we think about safety is: what are the preconditions that allow for us to actually be safe?”
Correction 2/25: A previous version of this article misattributed a quote about socialization in relation to police to David Helps rather than Charles Davis. The article has since been updated to correct that error.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly wrote that the New York Times analysis spanned from 2000 to 2001, rather than 2000 to 2021. The article has since been updated to correct that error.
Daily Staff Reporter Sneha Dhandapani can be reached at sdhanda@umich.edu.