Police Arrest
18 After Brawl

Published in The Collegian on January 22, 2001.
By Matt Griswold, Collegian Editor In Chief.

Fight leaves UTPD officer hospitalized, nine students arrested, and many others accusing police of using excessive force.

More than 50 officers were on campus early Sunday morning in an effort to keep the peace and remove party-goers from university parking lots. Some students allege that police officers used excessive force, including the use of mace and nightsticks, in their crowd-control tactics.

A Kappa Alpha fraternity dance spun out of control early Sunday when a fistfight broke out around 12:20 a.m. in the Student Union Building Auditorium, leading to the arrest of 18 people and the hospitalization of a UT police officer.

Of the 18 people arrested, nine were confirmed to be UT students, eight of whom were arrested and booked into the Lucas County Jail. According to a university news release, they are:
Shay Bankston, 19, disorderly conduct;
Branndon Brookins, 22, assault on a police officer, inciting violence and resisting arrest;
Khristyn Grant, 19, resisting an arrest and falsification;
Danny Dancy, 22, obstructing official business;
DeJuan Goulde, 23, disorderly conduct;
Alkeya Lastery, 20, disorderly conduct;
Jamie Perrin, 20, disorderly conduct;
Catherine Williams, 20, disorderly conduct;
One student, Kerry Briggs, 19, was cited for inciting violence and released.

UT police officer Jeff Newton was hurt when he tackled Brookins, who, according to the release, was fleeing from police after he allegedly threw a chair during the brawl. The incident started when a member of the Phi Theta fraternity picked a fight with a Kappa Alpha Psi member, said eyewitness Shannon Nichols, a junior majoring in criminal justice.

the officer and the suspect were taken to the Medical College of Ohio Hospital, where Newton was in serious condition sunday morning around 8:30 a.m., the news release said. Brookins was treated at the hospital for an injured wrist and returned to the county jail. Officers at the scence said Newton was hurt when he fell on concrete steps outside the auditorium. He suffered a collapsed lung. His condition had been upgraded to fair as of 11 p.m. yesterday.

John Dauer, UT's chief of police, was unavailable for comment. The UT police department directed questions relating to the indicident to the university's public relations department.

Tobin Klinger, UT's media relations coordinator, told The Independent Collegian that four off-duty City of Toledo police officers were working the dance as security. When the fight broke out, the officers called for backup. Four UT police officers arrived, along with members of the Toledo and Ottawa Hills police departments. A total of 55 police officers were at the scene, Klinger said.

Some of the arrested students felt many of the officers used unnecessay force when trying to bring the situation under control.

Nichol, who was not arrested, agreed, describing the scene as pure chaos.

"There was nowhere to run. Chairs were flying everywhere," she said. "Then the police came running in macing everyone - even people who had nothing to do with it.

"People who were trying to grab their friends out of the middle were getting maced. I saw a couple people get hit with billy clubs."

Klinger said he has no knowledge of any officers using any weapons other than pepper spray.

"In the breaking up of the event, (the officers) did not use any excessive force," he said. "Weapons were not used. Peper speay was used, yes, but not billy clubs. And nothing was used with the intent of subduing people who were not involved."

But Nichols, along with her arrested friend Bankston, maintain that police acted irresponsibly in their unsuccessful attempts to control an out-of-control situation.

Things went from bad to worse, they said, when officers began clearing out an overcrowded Lot 10, located north of the Glass Bowl.

Nichols and Bankston were passengers in an automobile driven by the arrested Grant and accompanied by a male friend they said was not a UT student.

Nichols said the officers were less than polite in their efforts to get the students to hurry out of the lot.

Bankston, a sophomore majoring in history with a concentration in pre-law agreed.

As the car was in the process of exiting the lot, Bankston said she spotted Goulde as he was being placed under arrest for doing nothing more tan trying to break up some of the fighting. He was unavailable for comment.

Bankston stuch her head out the window and asked Goulde if there was anyone she could call for him, she said. An officer immediately instructed Bankston and Grant to leave, at which time they pointed out that heavy traffic was preventing them from leaving in a timely fashion.

"There were so many car," Bankston said. "We just couldn't leave.

"The car was already in motionwhen (an officer) comes and opens the door, puts the car in park and takes the keys out of the ignition," said Nichols, who witnessed the incident from the backseat of Grant's car. "He yanked (Grant)out of the car like she as a 250-pound man."

Bankston proceeded to tell Grant that she would call Grant's mother and inform her of the situation, she said.

That is when an officer asked Bankston is she a driver's license, Nichols said. As Bankston was pulling out the license from her wallet, the officer grabbed her arm and put her under arrest as well, she said.

"They never told us what we were arrested for or read us our rights," Bankston said.

She added that throughout the ordeal, police officers mocked the girls, saying things like "We didn't go to college, your're gonna have to slow down a little bit," Bankston recalled. "One of the officers told me I was stupid for looking out for DeJuan (Goulde). He said "You got arrested for nothing. That makes you real stupid," she said.

The officers were using abusive language and cussing them out throughout, she said.

"They look at us all the same like we're little hoodlums or something. "I've never bad a problem with the law in my whole life," she said, adding that she's studying law in hopes of becoming a lawyer someday. "I was wearing boots and a skirt. Who was I going to hurt? I just feel violated."

Grant is concerned with the university's legal services department. She said the department's lack of availability this weekend has left many of the arrested students without representation for a court date scheduled for today.

"Why are they charging us money it they're not going to represent us?" she said yesterday. "I don't think they'll have adequate time tommorrow to be prepared."

It was an unfortunate situation that the students involved will not soon forget, Nichols said.

"We pay to go to school here. We don't pay to get maced and beat up over nothing," she said. "This issue may be a racial issue, but I"m not going to say that. All those police officers were not needed. They only made it worse."

 Return to University of Toledo police corruption.