Why can’t students and the police get along? Both groups weigh in on the tension’s origins and
how to fix it
Photo Illustration by Elliot Cramer
Story by Katie Hilbert
Photos by Sarah Thompson
Last year on the night of Homecoming, Seth Kujat went to jail.
The senior communication studies major and former member of the Undergraduate Student Senate was at a party when he was arrested for questioning an officer’s behavior.
“He grabbed me by the back of my neck collar and pushed me over to the car and pushed me on the trunk and told me to get in the back seat,” Kujat says.
But for every student who, like Kujat, has had an unfavorable experience with a police officer, there is probably a police officer who has had an unfavorable experience with a student or college-aged individual.
“Rarely a week goes by where an officer isn’t spit on,” says Kent Police Chief James Peach.
Kujat’s and Peach’s stories are not the only ones that involve students and police clashing on Kent turf. The relationship between Kent State students and the Kent Police is one that has been strained for years.
At a university where student/police relations are often traced back to the turbulent events surrounding May 4, 1970, and the shootings, it seems inevitable that tension and hostility between students and police would become a constant concern and a topic of debate.
Arrested
As he was walking home from the bars, Kujat decided to stop at the home of his friend Mike Bailey’s girlfriend. When Kujat arrived, Bailey expressed concern that the police might come, and he asked Kujat to stick around because of Kujat’s involvement with the USS.
If that happens, tell everyone to go inside, turn the music down and keep the door closed, Kujat told him.
Just as Bailey expected, the police showed up at the party. When they arrived, Kujat was standing off to the side in the driveway. The police told everyone they had to go home, and people started going in the house.
One police officer told the crowd that if people kept going inside, the police would go in after them and arrest them.
“Well, I don’t believe you’re allowed in the house without a warrant,” Kujat told the officer.
“Rarely a week goes by where an officer isn't spit on”
“What did you say?” the officer asked Kujat, who repeated what he said.
“Who do you think you are?” the officer said. “You think you’re a lawyer?”
That night Kujat was charged with obstructing official police business.
“The cops were very unprofessional the whole time,” he says. “When I got to the police station, the police officer that arrested me, he didn’t even know what he arrested me for. He had to ask another officer.”
The night he was arrested, Kujat sat in jail for about six hours.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges.
His trial was postponed twice, and he went to court in April, almost seven months after the arrest took place.
Kujat won his case.
Photo Illustration by Melissa Gaug
Many students say that Kent police do not listen to them and that
the police assume the students don't know the laws and so they
take advantage of the students.
Why So Much Tension?
The tension between students and police has been going on for decades, Peach says.
“And it’s not unusual. In any university community, this is the same, whether it be Athens, Youngstown, Toledo, Dayton, Columbus,” he says.
Students often expect accommodations, Peach says, but the police can’t compromise the values in neighborhoods, particularly when residents are complaining. The police also won’t compromise the enforcement of city ordinances or state statutes.
While some students complain that Kent residents are not tolerant enough of students, Peach says he disagrees.
“Quite frankly, the people are pretty tolerant in this community because the university has been here since 1910,” he says.
One of students’ biggest complaints with the police department’s tolerance is how quickly they respond to noise violations, Peach says. But residents will complain that the police are not responding fast enough.
“The officers get it from both ends,” he says.
In one student’s eyes, the noise ordinance adds to the tension between students and police.
“I think that makes situations a lot more tense because there’s more for students who live off-campus to worry about when they’re throwing social events and also more calls for the police to deal with,” says Julie Gumerman, a senior integrated language arts and English major. “I think that it makes everyone more stressed out.”
Tensions between students and police begin to form as soon as a student leaves home, Peach says.
“People’s behaviors are generally not nearly as good outside of their hometown as it is in their hometown,” he says. “People will do things away from their mother and father that they may not otherwise.”
Gumerman has attended Kent State for four years. She attributes the tension to the University Townhomes riots in May 2001. The riots resulted from end of the year parties at the apartment complex. When fires and general chaos became part of the scene and people began to get injured, police in riot gear arrived.
“I don’t know exactly why they reacted the way they did, but they went into that apartment complex and used rubber bullets, and I believe they used a lot of pepper spray at people,” Gumerman says.
Chief Peach also remembers the riots.
A large fire burned in the parking lot, and people threw furniture into the flames, he says. A car exploded after being set on fire. People were injured. Thousands failed to comply with the instructions the officers gave.
Officers in riot gear had to be called to the scene in order to take control of and maintain the neighborhood.
“Unfortunately, that sure shouldn’t have been necessary had people complied with being lawful in their behavior and conduct,” Peach says. “And that was not the case.”
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