I suppose this is just another story about the rise of public intolerance, privilege, and racial profiling that occurs daily here in America. It’s blatancy speaks for itself. But I am furious.
CSU releases bodycam video, 911 call from tour incident involving Native American teens
FORT COLLINS, Colo. -- Colorado State University said Friday it "deeply regrets" an incident in which two Native American teenagers had police called on them during a campus tour because the mother of another prospective student said she was nervous about their presence.
This happened on Monday.
The CSU Police Department released body camera footage Friday of officers' interaction with the two teens, audio of the 911 call to police and the police report. You can watch, listen and read them below.
{(If you go to the link you can hear the racist, white parent’s six minute 911 call in full.)}
"When I ask them what they were wanting to study, everything they`re saying isn`t ... um, they were lying the whole time, and they were just wearing, they just really stand out," the parent said.
She went on to say, "I think they`re hispanic, I believe, one of them for sure, he said he`s from Mexico."
In the body camera footage the campus police ask the students to show their hands and prove they were on the tour. When one of the brothers shows an email confirmation, the police let them go.
Some great reporting on this incident by BY CHUCK HICKEY, ASSOCIATED PRESS AND ZORA STEPHENSON with links to police reports, etc.:
The university now wants to make things right. On twitter, they invited the entire family back to campus for an all expenses paid trip and VIP tour.
Thomas Gray says the family has not responded yet. Gray also tells FOX31 he would still consider CSU for school. it was his number one choice.
CSU President Tony Frank wrote a lengthy letter Friday about the incident. You can read it here.
"We deeply regret the unwelcoming and concerning experience they had while guests on our campus,” the university wrote.
The statement came after news broke that the two teens had the police called on them.
Gray said police stopped him and his brother while the Colorado State admissions tour group was inside a gymnasium Monday, and began questioning the brothers aggressively about why they were on campus that day.
Campus police patted down each of the teens and released them only after they were able to provide an email proving they had reserved spots on the tour.
By then, however, their tour group had moved on without them and the brothers left the campus and returned home to New Mexico.
The teens’ mother, Lorraine Kahneratokwas Gray, said she believes her sons were victims of racial profiling and she feared for their safety after learning about the encounter.
“I felt they had been the victim of racism and that they weren’t safe there,” she said in a post this week on Facebook.
I’m getting on a plane soon so I cannot do this article justice, but my outrage is complete as a resident of Colorado, a state which was inhabited by Native Americans for thousands of years before that white woman or her children or her ancestors ever set foot on this continent.
This must stop. We must stand up to racial profiling at its roots.
BTW — my SO thinks an appropriate response would be to track down the complainant’s child and refuse admission to that student. But then we would be like them, right?