Feature
THIN BLUE LINE By: Joseph Acosta | Business Manager
There were ten complaints filed against the FAUPD in the 2019-2020 school year. What does this mean, and what can students do? The FAU Police Department has had their share of complaints and compliments filed to their office. In the 2019-2020 school year, the campus community filed ten complaints against their officers alleging issues from unprofessionalism to sexual harassment and racial profiling.
Blue Lives Matter is a countermovement to Black Lives Matter that supports police officers in the US, often to attack Black Lives Matter. Supporters of the Blue Lives Matter see the police as the “thin blue line” between the community they protect and lawlessness.
Complaints and Compliments Of the ten complaints, police found seven complaints unfounded by internal investigations done by the department, meaning police deemed there weren’t enough facts or evidence necessary to continue with the investigation. One such case involved an officer who was accused of racial profiling and making an unlawful arrest. This incident was determined to be “dating violence” and no unethical behavior or racial profiling was found. In a case from October of 2019, an officer “adjusted his belt while staring at a female employee” according to the complaint. The officer later retired for what the university called medical reasons, according to records obtained by the University Press via a public records request.
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There was one sustained complaint, which meant that the complaint would be upheld and an investigation would take place. An officer was not wearing his Body-Worn Camera (BWC) when investigating a complaint on a bus used to transport students to Universal Studios in April 2020. According to the report, the officer was later counseled by the department for not activating said camera. Seth Stoughton, a law professor at the University of South Carolina and former officer in the Tallahassee Police Department, said in an email that the use of body cameras hasn’t severely affected the day-to-day workings of an officer. “They have one more piece of equipment that they need to keep charged (like their radios and flashlights). They need to remember to turn it on and off, and to upload and log the videos. These are relatively minor, mostly administrative changes,” Stoughton said.
