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After Blow ’16 detained at gunpoint, YPD to conduct internal investigation

http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2015/01/27/salovey-holloway-higgins-address-blow-incident-in-campus-wide-email/

By Stephanie Addenbrooke

Staff Reporter

Yale Daily News
Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Wish I could call Yale Police's trigger-happy encounter with your Yale son "racism' Mr. Blow.
Yale Police have at least a 35 year history, not of racist behavior but of classist behavior.
As a townie dressed in overalls in 1979 , when my personal check was refused for dinner and I protested loudly, I was arrested in the Divinity School Refectory in
by Yale Police, even though I was an enrolled divinity student. The overalls made me look dangerous---and poor.
The judge threw the case out of court (nolle) because he himself happened to have been an eyewitness to the event and said the Yale police "overreacted." http://yalearrest.blogspot.com...
Yale Police kicked a black man on my graduation night in my presence, and I fought
for months with Woodbridge Hall defending him against unreasonable and abusive Yale Police behavior. The charges were finally dropped.
In both cases Yale Police were treating those dressed
like poor town folk, rather than Ivy League preppies, as second class citizens
(one white----me-----and one black ------Mr. S___) .
Their behavior was based on suspicion of those who did not fit the "Yale persona", a form of classism.
Perhaps the fact that they kicked the black man was more racist than classist since they didn't kick me, the white man. They just handcuffed me.
The pistol packin' Yale patrolman's unholstered gun pointed at your son, Mr. Blow, a few days ago makes me wonder if Yale Police still operate out of xenophobic fear rather than calm professionalism.
And xenophobia may be too generous, since their victim's skin was black. Perhaps "racism" does fit here. I'm incorrect, after all, Mr. Blow. My apology.
Paul Keane
M. Div. '80
See attached link
for documents related to both arrests.

http://yalegrad80.blogspot.com

http://yalearrest.blogspot.com/

Nancy Morris theantiyale 5 hours ago
I " liked" the comment. And I agree the claims of "racism" in the matter of Tahj's experience are unfounded, at best.
And perhaps the YPD overreacted in your own old case.
But there is no evidence of "classism" in anything you provide. Those conclusions seem to be entirely a gloss of your own divising, although screaming in a dining hall is definitely low or no class behavior. Merely acting as a low-class bum and getting swatted for it doesn't prove that social class was the motivation behind the swat. It is also likely that those running the dining hall couldn't stand screamers no matter what their social position. I can't. And anyone who starts screaming in a dining hall over something like this deserves little sympathy, although perhaps not criminal charges.
That you were the beneficiary of the judge acting in your case despite having an obvious conflict of interest stemming from his personal involvement as a "witness" is not something of which you should be proud. What he did is inconsistent with accepted standards of judicial temperament and ethics, and at a minimum should have been vetted as a substantial impediment to any effort to elevate that judge to a higher position (an appeals court, for example). No doubt the fact that you settled and the case couldn't go to trial caused him to consider his breach de minimis.
Can you imagine what you would have thought if the case had gone to trial as you wanted before that judge and, during the trial, he had leaned forward from the bench and said:
"Well, I happened to witness the whole thing, and so I know the defendant is obviously guilty of at least as much as the prosecutor says he is. I saw it myself with my own eyes. The only real question here is how much time he should spend in prison. So let's cut to the chase."
That's why we try to keep the judiciary disinterested.