U. Police continue harassment probe

A "preliminary" University Police Department investigation has found that University Police officers acted "appropriately" during an incident last month in which several black students said they were harassed, Commissioner John Kuprevich said this week. But Kuprevich also said the internal probe of the High Rise South incident revealed only "one side of the story," adding that "those students have to have a reason for what they are saying about that night." "We have to get more information," he said. "The only way that you work through these issues is fact versus fact - what happened, why did that person take that action and was it justified?" He said he planned to meet with student leaders during the summer to discuss the incident and to improve the relationship between minorities and University Police "if there is any sense of not knowing each other as a community." And Assistant to the President Nicholas Konstan said several minority student leaders who met with President Sheldon Hackney and otehr University officials last month would have another meeting with Hackney in the fall to further discuss the incident and issues of diversity at the University. The incident in question began during the early hours of April 11, when several black students returning from the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity's "DKE 'Till Dawn" party gathered in the lobby of High Rise South. In a letter to The Daily Pennsylvanian, Shannon Fiddiman, the president of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and one of the sudents present that night, described the following course of events: As some students talked with friends and others awaited transportation to another event, University Police responded twice to calls describing loud and rowdy behavior in the lobby. Each time, the McGinn Security guard was asked to escort the students out of the building, although neither the guard nor the desk worker told the students that they were causing a disturbance. After the second call, the University Police officers - who were white - apparently told the students they had recevied similar reports and then asked the students to leave, according to several accounts. In her letter, Fiddiman noted that, as a dormitory deskworker herself, she had seen many white students come into a high rise lobby late at night and act as hse and other students had done - without having any problems from University Police. Fiddiman could not be reached for further comment this week. Other minority student leaders, including Black Student League president Martin Dias, also could not be reached. Kuprevich, who attended the meeting between the student leaders, Hackney and other University officials, said he was very impressed with the way the students presented their concerns. "I did not find them to be accusationory," he said. "What I found was some concern, some issues that were well raised. Their willingness to talk about that is 99 percent of the battle, and I think something positive is going to come out of this for both sides." Associate Vice Provost for University Life Larry Moneta said that he plans to let University Police handle the investigation of the incident because it is "predominantly a police matter." But he said he planned to spend the early part of the summer on "fact-finding" about the University's diversity education program an din meetings with Dias to determine ways to make the University more multi-cultural. "I'm focussing more on 'where do we go from here,' and less on 'what did we do wrong,' although both needs to be done," Moneta said.

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