Q Center town hall focuses on healing divide between students and the UWPD

www.dailyuw.com - RSS Results in news,news/* of type article While many people may feel safer in the presence of police, this is not always true for historically marginalized communities both across the nation and here on our own campus. On Wednesday, the Q Center hosted an open discussion entitled “Health & Wellness on Campus and in the Community,” the second town hall in the three-part series. The non-student guests included two UW Police Department (UWPD) officials and a representative from the Intramural Activities Building (IMA).The discussion began with the police officials citing their relationship to the queer community and their stake in protecting queer individuals. Commander Craig Wilson spoke of his son, an openly gay man from Snohomish County, and Deputy Chief Les Liggins spoke of his time at the Seattle Police Department and his efforts to connect with the Seattle queer community.
After these brief introductions, several students immediately brought up their concerns that the UWPD was “not on their side,” citing instances of police brutality at the Jan. 20 protest of the Milo Yiannopoulos event. One student who attended the protest cited the use of bikes to push students down the stairs, causing several students to fall down and get hurt. At one point, the group of protestors was chanting for a medic, but no police action was taken.Wilson explained the use of bikes to move protesters as a means to “keep order.”“The anarchist group had an agenda to break things up and the police had a responsibility to control that scene,” Wilson said. “It wasn’t done in a way to assault individuals, but to open up that area.”A UW student then responded that the queer and trans community did not feel protected because the police presence on Jan. 20 was to protect the event and not the protesters, despite Yiannopoulos attacking a transgender student a month prior and allegations that he planned on revealing ...


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