TAMPA, Fla. — Four people — two of them students — are facing serious charges after a Monday afternoon protest on the University of South Florida’s main campus.
The protest for increased Black enrollment at the school began as a march from the Marshall Student Center to the Patel Center for Global Solutions building.
According to Lauren Pineiro with the Tampa Bay Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), USF police officers got involved when the protesters entered the Patel Center and chanted loudly demanding a meeting with the university president.
“Increase Black enrollment now!” the students chanted as they entered the building.
Tampa Bay SDS sent ABC Action News several video clips of what happened next. While they don’t show the incident in its entirety, they show several minutes of the scuffle that ensued between protesters and police.
Warning: The following video contains graphic language. Viewer discretion is advised.
In one of the videos, a police officer warned students that they would be arrested unless they left the building.
“We are staying here until we get a meeting with the president,” a student protester responded.
Reacting to her response, the officer grabbed her by the elbow in an effort to restrain her.
Another clip, which shows a wider view of what followed, shows that other protesters rushed forward in an attempt to pull the protester away from the officer. As other officers rushed in, the two sides clashed before officers were able to restrain and arrest multiple students.
Other videos show at least two more clashes both inside and outside the Patel Center.
In one of them, a protester uses the side of their body to push against an officer in an attempt to free a fellow protester. The officer grabs the protester and pushes them toward the building’s exit.
ABC Action News asked Pineiro about how the incident transpired.
“We said that we, you know, we’re students, we’re allowed to be here, we’d like to meet with the president, and we won’t be leaving until we get a meeting. That’s when they grabbed us and started to brutalize us,” Pineiro said. “If [officers] got any injuries, it’s because we were trying to protect each other. Like, we weren’t trying to hit them at all. We were trying to get each other away from the police because they were grabbing at us with such force.”
USFPD paints a different picture of what happened.
Police say they made the arrests after several protesters “became aggressive and initiated physical altercations with police.”
“One officer was pushed to the ground and suffered minor injuries, while other officers were also shoved by protestors,” the department wrote in a statement. “Protestors hit police with objects, including what officers believe was a video camera and a water bottle, and threw an unidentified liquid at officers.”
Videos sent to ABC Action News do not clearly show anything thrown.
ABC Action News asked USFPD for any video taken by the university that shows more of the incident. However, according to a spokesperson, the department currently does not have body cameras.
Damysha Morris and Dametrius Youngblood, who are both first-year students at USF, understand why police responded but think the situation could have been handled differently.
“I was honestly shook,” said Morris. “They could have definitely handled that in a better manner.”
“It could have been handled a lot better,” Youngblood added. “Personally, I just think the biggest question was why did it have to go that far. Personally, from the videos, I didn’t see anything that was…threatening.”
Regardless of what happened, the two students hope the university will listen to protesters’ demands for more Black enrollment since the latest data shows that the number of African American students has fallen to 9.1%.
That percentage does not mirror the communities around it. According to the U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts data, Tampa is 22.4% African American.
ABC Action News asked the university what it is doing to increase Black enrollment but did not get an answer.
According to the police, the four who were arrested have been charged with assault or battery of law enforcement officers, resisting an officer without violence to his or her person, and interrupting a school.
