The student representative to the Division of Public Safety's Advisory Board stepped down Tuesday night to make a statement in protest of the University's non-action regarding the creation of a Civilian Review Board for police behavior.
Alex Breland, a College junior, informed the 30-person board of his decision at the conclusion of its meeting, after the board denied his requests for drastic changes to be made to the procedural and substantive methods of the group.
The DPS originally offered a student position on the board last spring as a compromise, following the disappointment by many student groups about the lack of movement regarding the creation of an actual civilian review board.
Breland was chosen by the members of the Asian Pacific Student Coalition, Latino Coalition, Black Student League and the United Minorities Council as the representative to the board.
Leaders of these groups said they support Breland's decision.
"Alex decided to resign because it came to our attention after some research into the advisory board's structure that the board would not be able to effectively address the flaws we see in the current [University of Pennsylvania Police Department] complaint process," United Minorities Council Political Chairman Shaun Gonzales wrote in a statement.
The desire for a review board of this type sprung out of an incident last January in which then-College senior Dimitri Dube claimed that he was unjustly harassed by Penn Police because of alleged racial motivations.
Following the incident, the minority coalitions called for the creation of a board to oversee police action, which was supported by an initiative passed by the Undergraduate Assembly the following month.
University officials declined to comment on Breland's resignation or the civilian review board last night.
"Ideally, what we saw was a coming together of students, faculty, administration at Penn, community members in the West Philadelphia area and members of the police department," APSC Chairwoman Eugena Oh said. "It's too early to make some sort of definitive statement as to what [else] we want."
Members of the four groups met late last night to begin the formulation of these goals.
Oh said that while she is not sure how the groups will choose to counter their issues, she is sure about the DPS's lack of capability to handle the needs of the community, propelling the necessity for a separate review board.
"There is no participation from the greater West Philadelphia community on the board," Oh, a College senior, said. "There happen to be a few faculty that sit on the board who happen to live in West Philadelphia. That really isn't good enough for us."
In addition, Oh cited the infrequency of the DPS's review process -- the board meets only once annually --as well as the filtering of complaints through Police Chief Tom Rambo before they reach the board as inadequacies which led to Breland's resignation.
Students involved in the issue also say it was important to make their stance clear to the administration.
"We do not want to give the false impression that the advisory board is a solution to the problems in the current complaint process," Gonzales wrote.
Gonzales said the administration claimed the establishment of a civilian review board would be impossible because of current stipulations within police contracts which stated that police actions could not be monitored by civilians.
The three-year contract was up for renewal -- and possible change -- this past July. Students leaders say they had the proposal for a civilian review board ready by that time but were ignored.
"The DPS resisted," Oh said. "There was no direct reason given, there was a lot of stalling."
This article erroneously stated that Alex Breland was the sole student member of the Advisory Board. In fact, there are three student spots, representing the Undergraduate Assembly, Graduate and Professional Student Assembly and United Minorities Council. Breland was the UMC representative.
