UPenn Students, Faculty Want Campus Police Disarmed, Crime Alert System Dismantled

A member of the Philadelphia bomb squad surveys the scene after an ATM machine was blown-up at 2207 N. 2nd Street in Phil., Pa. on June 2, 2020. David Maialetti/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP

Students and faculty at University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) are calling on the administrators to disarm the campus police force and dismantle the crime alert messaging service, in an effort to fight against what they call “militarized models of campus policing.”

“We stand against the manner in which this police state is institutionalized at the University of Pennsylvania,” reads a petition started after the May 25 death of George Floyd. Over 12,000 signatures have been collected for the petition in support of banning a host of policing practices that they say “have led to the lynchings of Black men, women, and transgender people.”