By Dianne Anderson

What began with a group of Black college students, many still in bathing suits, cleaning up dishes after a Labor Day pool party at their residence ended with armed police on site, guns drawn.

Just before they came, things were winding down.

One student was carrying dishes and food from the pool area back to her and her friend’s apartment when she turned around to see eight to 10 officers moving in pyramid style toward her area.

“I thought it was SWAT because of how they came with those huge guns. I never saw regular police come with those guns. They were heavily armed,” said Aneica, a Cal State San Bernardino student who asked that her last name be withheld.

Available videos, taken from multiple angles by multiple people, appear to show roughly 20 students, most of them residents of The Glen apartments, in handcuffs, with what appears to be about as many officers on site.

Students said everyone at the pool was Black.

One officer has a tactical patrol rifle pointed straight ahead into the gated area where students were detained and cuffed. The officer is kneeling on the lower back of a student pinned to the ground with both hands raised. When the student gets up, the officer points the rifle at his back.

Other video spans about 20 minutes and shows two officers dragging a young man away in cuffs as he screams for someone to call his mother. Another can be heard screaming that his foot hurts as two officers drag him away, limping.

“They were kneeling on my friend David’s back,” Aneica said. “For all of us, that was our first encounter with police ever. Where they grabbed me, I was walking alone. I wasn’t even in the pool area anymore.”

Most students were under 20, she said, and many were members of the college football team. She said officers were antagonizing students, and one officer told a student to “jump dog” because he was looking at the officer.

Her other friend, the only other female who did not have babies at the event, was also patted down, cuffed and thrown to the ground. She said no female officers were present and it did not feel right that the male officer touched her.

“After he put me in cuffs, he got the back of his leg and put it on the back of my leg to bring me down. But he put so much pressure from himself on me, that’s what sprained my ankle. And I have bruises all the way up and down from my right leg,” she said.

With the exception of about four invited guests, she said all those at the pool for the barbecue were residents. It was hot, and everyone was in light lounge wear.

She was wearing a bikini top with sweatpants.

“It was completely wholesome. We had babies under the age of one there. We were drinking soda, there wasn’t even loud music played past ten,” she said, adding that her friend, “all of 100 pounds,” was also taken to urgent care with a dislocated arm.

“The officer manhandled us,” she said. “He picked her up while she was in cuffs, by her cuffs, and kind of threw her to the ground, like reeling her around.”

Once the adrenaline wore off and the pain set in, Aneica went to the emergency room, where she obtained her medical records and received follow-up treatment for a sprained wrist and ankle.

Later, she said students learned from a security guard that the tow truck driver had reported that Black students at the pool were gang affiliated and had guns.

Students have also reported to local NAACP branch members that the officers bypassed a white woman walking her dog before approaching the Black students with guns drawn.

It was not immediately clear whether anyone was arrested or cited.

San Bernardino police said they could not comment while the investigation is pending, including on the dispatch and 911 call records, the legal basis for the detentions, any injuries or use-of-force reports, and records or video the department has from the incident.

CSUSB said that it has heard from students who reported being directly and indirectly impacted by the incident, and that campus representatives have connected them with resources.

Because the incident occurred off campus and did not involve University Police, CSUSB said it is not conducting its own investigation into the police response.

For now, the university is looking at how it would be notified if something similar happens again.

CSUSB University Police Chief Steven Griffin plans to propose a notification system with San Bernardino police that would require the SBPD watch commander to notify the University Police Department watch commander when officers respond to a significant incident at The Glen or a nearby apartment or business complex and determine CSUSB students are involved, CSUSB said.

In a message posted to the CSUSB subreddit, President Terri Gómez said she was “deeply concerned” about what students experienced.

“Encounters such as this can be frightening, distressing, and have a lasting impact on students and their sense of safety and well-being. I want our students to know that we hear your concerns, and we are here to support you,” Gómez wrote.

Dr. April Clay, a family therapist and member of the local NAACP branch, said it is important to bring the students into the conversation about the trauma they experienced and find ways to help ease their anxiety.

She is offering free services to students who need help because if students suppress their emotions and memories, those experiences can stay with them, even when their conscious mind is no longer focused on them.

“It can be years down the road that something happens to trigger that traumatic experience and they suffer from it. It’s the way trauma works in our body,” she said.

Clay said the young people live in that building, they are residents and they are athletes, and they see what they experienced every day.

“They’re expected to carry on, continue their coursework, continue life as normal, go to work, go to school, go to practice, carry on like normal,” she said. “But then the police are physically in the community still. They are still experiencing the memory of it. They’ll never forget this the rest of their lives.”

For more information, see:

• To see the video of the incident posted to Instagram by @citamama: https://www.instagram.com/p/DdBW-qDBcaK/
• For CSUSB campus support, contact Counseling and Psychological Services at (909) 537-5040, or the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs at (909) 537-5185.
• For Dr. Clay’s office, see https://www.claycounseling.org/
• To read CSUSB President Terri Gómez’s statement on Reddit addressing the incident, see https://www.reddit.com/r/CSUSB/comments/1n6w8j4/what_labor_day_incident/