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What is MSUPD’s role? Who are they protecting and what are they trained for? Is MSU police necessary? What do we mean when we say “abolish the police”? (a thread)
MSUPD’s mission is to “enhance the quality of life on campus by building relationships, strengthening stewardship, & working collaboratively w/in our diverse community to reduce crime, enforce laws, preserve peace, & provide for a safe environment” but who are they keeping safe?
Who was MSUPD building relationships when they used their armored vehicle - the one they said wouldn’t be used for civil disorders - to protect alt-right supporters of Richard Spender from protesters of anti-Blackness and white supremacy? https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/03/06/richard-spencer-had-very-bad-terrible-no-good-weekend-capped-sparsely-attended-speech
Lending officers and armored vehicles to Ingham Regional Special Response Team (IRSRT) in May, during the 1st protest in Lansing against anti-Blackness, police brutality, & the murder of George Floyd, is a too literal understanding of “strengthening stewardship”
MSUPD's jurisdiction and their relationship to ELPD and IRSRT https://eastlansinginfo.news/ask-eli-whats-the-jurisdiction-of-msu-police/
MSUPD’s budget currently accounts for 56% of the Institutional Support, Logistical Services budget, annually paying out $5,216,007 in salary & $1,861,307 for supplies, services & equipment. Supplies, services & equipment like tear gas they use on students & give to ELPD & IRSRT.
MSU's budget for 2019/2020
https://msu.edu/_assets/documents/transparency-reporting/2019-2020-General-Fund-Budgets.pdf
https://msu.edu/_assets/documents/transparency-reporting/2019-2020-General-Fund-Budgets.pdf
Supplies, services, and equipment they use to train for “scenarios such as search warrant, drug and hostage situations and barricaded subjects,” where they get to use their “snipers and canines for perimeter points.” https://www.wilx.com/content/news/Police-use-old-inn-for-tactical-training-504122561.html
MSUPD trains w/military grade equipment for extreme scenarios, but their clergy crime & fire log reveals their job is mostly dedicated to traffic stops, which data from a FOIA to MSUPD reveals disproportionate targets Black people. https://sameracismdifferentera.squarespace.com/blog/data-shows-michigan-state-university-police-department-over-stops-blackafrican-american-community
MSUPD is fulfilling its mission & doing an amazing job enhancing the quality of life on campus for alt-right supporters, strengthening stewardship w/military grade equipment, & disproportionately targeting Black people when enforcing laws that protect & uphold white supremacy
MSUPD also has a history of continually undermining student activist efforts and surveilling student movements against white supremacy, anti-Blackness, exploitative labor, and police brutality. MSUPD is clearly gratuitous and unnecessary. https://theintercept.com/2018/03/30/msu-richard-spencer-antifa/
MSUPD infiltrated a student anti-sweatshop group under the dangerous assumption that protest = violence. MSU(PD) has a troubling history with surveillance https://www.michigandaily.com/content/stop-secret-investigations-cops-shouldnt-undermine-activists
MSU’s recent Together We Will hygiene theater pledges to make campus safe for return this fall, but campus was unsafe even before Covid19. Instead, Abolition @ MSU seeks to concretize MSU’s pledge to make campus safe by saying Together We Will Abolish MSU Police!
Our call for abolition is an effort to bring about real material change at MSU through practical initiatives, beginning with defunding the police by rejecting expansion of budgets, reducing power of police unions, and demanding budget cuts until there is nothing left.
Like #8toAbolition, “we believe in the strategic importance of non-reformist reforms, or measures that reduce the scale, scope, power, authority, and legitimacy of criminalizing institutions” and…
...we envision abolition as not only a matter of tearing down criminalizing systems such as police and prisons that shorten the lives of Black, brown, and poor people, but also a matter of building up life-sustaining systems that reduce, prevent, and better address harm.”
Abolition @ MSU seeks abolition by means of defunding campus police and redistributing the funds towards the protection, advancement, and material support of Black communities at MSU
