Media Release: UofR Student Occupation at Public Safety Building

At 3pm on Nov. 14, the UR Abolition Coalition began a 24-hour occupation in the parking lot of the Department of Public Safety.

At our 1p.m. rally, we made clear our many reasons for hosting this action. We shared testimonials from students about negative encounters with DPS. We identified existing structural problems with the department, such as the ability for sworn officers to make arrests on University property and on sidewalks adjacent to University buildings, and the unsettling presence of sworn and sometimes armed officers on mental health crisis calls.

Public Safety has consistently attempted to distance themselves from the Rochester Police Department and the punitive enforcement model of policing that has come under national scrutiny. Yet, still, DPS sustains practices that criminalise Black students, Black communities, and Black patients who come in contact with our university.  

We reject a model of public safety that is not accountable to the students, staff, faculty, patients or neighbors of UR’s surrounding communities it claims to serve. We reject a model that fails to recognize the trauma carried by centuries of state brutality in the psyches of marginalized people. We reject a model that presents a catch-all solution to the social demands left behind by dysfunctional institutions, from mental health emergencies and crimes of poverty to opening dorm room doors and turning off alarms.

How can we create a truly safe community if our understanding of care is colored by our obsession with outsider criminals and insider victims? How can we create a truly safe community when our conception of re-imagining refuses to embrace transparency or democratic decision-making in lieu of creating yet another ad hoc committee or task force?

We choose direct action to make our voices heard.

We are on hand with tents, blankets, sanitizer, wipes and food provisions to last through the night. Throughout our occupation we will receive political education from faculty, students and Rochester community members; we will engage and envision our brighter future through song, game, chanting, crafts, and community.

All of URAC’s demands still stand, however with this occupation we are highlighting the following:

- We demand that Daniel's Law be instituted on campus, preventing DPS officers from being dispatched to mental health calls.
- We demand the immediate public release of all DPS disciplinary and financial records to allow for a democratic, inclusive process of re-imagining.
- We demand that DPS sever all ties with the Rochester Police Department.

To our fellow students: We are with you and welcome your support in any form you can offer. For those who can, please join us! For those who cannot, please keep an eye on our Instagram page, @urlocalabolitionists, for calls for food or supplies and other types of support.

To our faculty and staff of all departments: We are with you, and hope you will stand with us. Now more than ever, we are in need of your verbal and written support. Please advocate for our cause in your spaces, and publish letters of support so the administration can see we are not alone in our desire for a community free from targeted profiling, surveillance, and over-policing.

To our Rochester community members: We are with you, and we are honored to struggle alongside you to transform our institutions into ones that act in the best interest of our entire community.

In solidarity,
University of Rochester Abolition Coalition

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