Over 400 Harvard affiliates have signed a petition calling on Harvard officials to act on a set of black student demands stemming from a “swatting” incident earlier this year.
In April, Harvard Police responded to what ended up being a bogus hostage situation at Leverett House. Upon arriving in riot gear early in the morning, the police demanded four black male students get out of their rooms.
Chief Victor Clay, who’s black, had said that his department’s actions “aligned with law enforcement protocols” and were “based on an assessment of the level of potential threat to members of our community with regards to a potential public safety situation.”
But one of the students said he and his peers “were all extremely scared” because they’ve “been bombarded [their] whole lives” with stories like theirs that had ended in tragedy.