Freshmen allege race-motivated Sunday arrest of four at local Denny's
By TIM LOGAN
News Editor
Nine Notre Dame students entered Denny's on Dixieway South late on the night of Sunday, Feb. 27, but before they even sat down at a table, four were in police custody for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
Now their arrest, and the subsequent decision of St. Joseph County prosecutor Chris Toth not to press charges, has accusations flying and police on the defensive.
Tiffany Johnson and April Allen, both freshmen who were among the four arrested, appeared with University administrators at a press conference Wednesday and told their story, suggesting that the incident was racially motivated. The names of the other two students involved were not released, but all four are black.
"What [the police] did, it's not logical, so you have to think something and I think that race was a major factor," Allen said.
She questioned why the officers approached the group for merely knocking over a sign, and then why they seemingly refused to accept their answer that it was a mistake.
"I feel that we were unfairly treated," Allen said.
Roseland police chief Larry Miller said that at least three of the four arrests were justified, however, when the three female students became violent in the parking lot after the first, a freshman male, was handcuffed inside the restaurant.
"The three females, I have no doubt that they engaged in disorderly conduct and intervened in the arrest," he said.
He stressed that race was not a factor.
The incident began when Johnson apparently knocked over a small sign in the waiting area of the Denny's, and an officer approached the group as several students attempted to put it back up. He asked them if they were stealing the sign, the students said they were not and events escalated from there.
The students did not recall Wednes-day what exact words were passed between the officers and themselves before the first arrest took place.
"I can't really remember how it escalated," Allen said. "But it started when the officers came to us and accused us of stealing or playing with the sign."
After the first student was handcuffed, the group moved outside, where there was apparently further arguing over the arrest.
Johnson said that she asked the reason the first student was being taken into custody, and the officers would not tell her. Shortly thereafter, Johnson, Allen and another female student were arrested. The two students did not give specifics of the events leading up to their arrests, but Johnson said officers used pepper spray on her while she was handcuffed and sitting in a police car.
She also said that officers knocked another student's head against a car, giving her a bloody nose.
Miller, in defending his officers, told a different story, however. He said that, according to reports, three women were belligerent towards the officers, kicking, scratching and spitting at them, and that one tried to bite an officer during the fracas.
"The females were apparently in a vigilante mode, trying to interfere with the arrest," Miller said.
He said that the officers did what they had to do to bring the situation under control and that the students were challenging the initial arrest on the street when they should have challenged it in court.
Toth decided not to press charges after reviewing the arrest reports and a surveillance tape shot inside Denny's. He called the initial arrest "clearly unjustified" and said that it led to the other three, which he said lacked evidence necessary to bring charges.
"The situation was unnecessarily inflamed," Toth said.
There is no sound on the surveillance tape, but the officer arrested the first student shortly after approaching the group, and there was no illegal activity shown on the tape.
"I feel the initial situation agitated them," Toth said of the students. "The arrest simply should not have occurred."
Miller said he would ask the prosecutor to reconsider.
University officials stood squarely behind the students and said they had worked closely with them over the last week to ensure a just solution.
Chandra Johnson, assistant to the president, and Mel Tardy, an advisor in the First Year of Studies, went to St. Joseph County Jail after the incident happened to help the students. Three were released on $100 bond later that night and Johnson was let go on her own recognizance in the morning.
Father Mark Poorman, vice president for Student Affairs, decried the arrests.
"A serious injustice was done to a group of our students," he said.
He also said the University would talk with both the Roseland Police Department and Denny's about the incident in the hopes of clearing it up and preventing it from happening again.
"We all know this is more than an isolated incident," he said. "It is symptomatic of a problem that pervades our society and our community and it must be met head-on when an incident such as this occurs."
Johnson and Allen said they had not yet decided if they would press civil charges against the officers or Denny's.
All News Stories for Thursday, March 9, 2000
