I was standing on Turlington Plaza Monday with some members of the Coalition for Justice Against Police Brutality, telling students walking by about the shooting of Kofi Adu-Brempong by the University Police Department. As we were handing out fliers for today’s protest, a girl stopped me and asked me about the incident. To no fault of her own, she said she hadn’t heard anything about it and wanted to know how UPD could possibly shoot an international student on campus.
I started telling her about how Adu-Brempong — a geography instructor who lived in Corry Village — had his door broken into by the UPD-equivalent of a SWAT team. Once the officers broke in, they shot him three times with a beanbag gun capable of knocking over a full-sized cow, twice with UPD’s infamous weapon of choice — a Taser — and was then shot in the face with an M-4 assault rifle. I didn’t have to tell her that the shots had destroyed half of Adu-Brempong’s jaw, upper-palette and tongue before her eyes started to well up with tears.
This girl’s reaction affected me in a way I haven’t felt for some time. As she asked “How could they do this?” I realized just how wrong Vice President of Student Affairs Patricia Telles-Irvin was when she insultingly told the coalition that it didn’t have the support of the Student Body. Most students understand an injury to one Gator is an injury to the entire Gator Nation, evidenced by the thousands of students who signed a petition demanding that all charges against Adu-Brempong be dropped, along with the 400 students, faculty and community members who came out to the last protest.
Today on Turlington Plaza at 4 p.m., students will be marching again to demand that the administration and UPD end this heinous example of injustice. Come out and fight back to win justice for Adu-Brempong and to make sure this atrocity never happens again.
Dave Schneider is a political science and history sophomore.
