October 29th’s contentious and argumentative Student Assembly meeting centered around the proposed severing of Cornell’s connections with the Ithaca police in light of the disputed events of the October 22nd Ithaca BLM protest.
Student Assembly President Catherine Huang, Vice President of Finance Uchenna Chukwukere, and Co-Director of Elections Moriah Adeghe were some of the nine co-sponsors of Resolution #9, titled “Demanding Cornell Absolve All Relations With The Ithaca Police Department” who presented the resolution at the meeting. The resolution, in its plain reading, “ call[ed] for Cornell University to absolve all ties with the Ithaca Police Department”. During the presentation, VP Woldai and Rep. Reuning (both co-sponsors of the resolution) personally recounted several altercations between protestors and Ithaca Police during protests on October 22, 2020.
Although eyewitness reports and video evidence may corroborate reports that police did deploy pepper spray and grab protestors, there is conflicting evidence regarding the initial arrest of one protestor, which precipitated the protests at IPD headquarters. According to the Ithaca Voice, there were repeated disruptions by protestors during an event with Congressman Tom Reed at the Tompkins County Republican Party headquarters, following a violent protest the previous week. After the event, allegedly one protester was arrested.
Regarding the events of October 22nd, Deputy Chief Vincent Monticello of the Ithaca Police Department (IPD) told the Review the following:
“Officially, all I can say right now is, as far as these false allegations that are being made, I am going to be cooperating with the Community Police Board and present them with the facts. I have said that from the beginning, I’ll cooperate with them. There is a lot of information that’s not been made public that will set the record straight on what happened that night, on the 22nd, as well as everything that’s happened prior to that.”
When Undesignated Representative-At-Large Dillon Anadkat pointed out several articles from The Cornell Daily Sun, which contended that the protestors had indeed been disruptive and engaged in altercations with police, he was met with fierce resistance. VP Chukwukere questioned Anadkat, asking him why he did not believe the testimony of SA members who were at the protest. Chukwukere went on to dismiss the Sun’s report, saying “It’s journalism. People spin things around”. Director Adeghe added that it was “disrespectful to discredit people’s lived experiences” and that Anadkat saying he did research was not only disrespectful but also “quite violent”.
Rep. Anadkat, who later voted against the resolution, responded by acknowledging that this issue of maintaining relations with the Ithaca Police Department was a sensitive one, and added that it was the first he heard of the protestors’ side of the story. He wanted to hear more evidence before making a decision on the issue. Ultimately, Resolution #9 passed with 17 votes in favor, 9 votes opposed, and 1 abstaining.
Cullen O’Hara also contributed to the reporting for this article.
