Tate met with SA in December about arming GWPD officers: committee chair

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SA Sen. Lydia Miller, ESIA-U and the chair of the Undergraduate Student Life Committee, said she first spoke to Tate about arming GWPD officers in a discussion with SA President Christian Zidouemba and other SA members in December and met with him one-on-one in late February to discuss instituting a potential task force or town hall to confer about the decision with students. She said she supports the decision to arm some officers because reports of shootings on other college campuses made her question her safety in Foggy

Bottom and GWPD officers are trained in firearm use.

Tate said many of the officers who would receive firearms have already been certified to carry firearms from previous positions at other police departments and agencies. He said officers receiving firearms will undergo training on de-escalation, use of force and firearm usage.

“I am confident that GWPD is acting in our best interest,” Miller said in an email. “The GWPD officers are trained professionals in ad- dition to being individually picked; they’re trained to use weapons only in the most dire of scenarios in the defense of those they serve.”

Incoming SA President Arielle Geismar protested the arming decision last Monday, saying it endangers students of color, especially Black and brown students.

“My years of experience in gun violence prevention informs me that guns do not make people safer,” she said at the protest. “It is incredibly important to me that we keep guns off of GW’s campus.” The executive board of GW College Republicans sent a statement to The Hatchet Tuesday backing the University’s decision because of the expected acceleration of GWPD officers’ response time in potential active-shooter situations to be “as immediate as possible.”

“The backlash against the decision primarily comes from the idea that arming police officers and securing the University from external threats makes students more unsafe, when it does quite the opposite,” the executive board said in a statement. Senior Victoria Freire said when GWPD officers appeared to push her down the front steps of the F Street House during a Sunrise GW protest in February 2020, there were “rumors” GWPD was considering arming its officers. She said after the incident at the February protest, she and her family met with GWPD to discuss the incident, where she requested Tate not arm officers. She said Tate reassured her and her family he would not. She said “countless” students and alumni reached out to her with their own stories of GWPD reportedly causing physical altercations with them or racially profiling them.