Brooklyn College is directing NYPD officers to use the dilapidated restrooms away from the main part of campus in order to keep them away from students who are triggered by the sight of cops, the New York Post reported.
This comes as students at the college are circulating a petition to keep cops off campus entirely.
Donald Wenz, the school’s director of public safety, told student newspaper The Excelsior that he’s trying to keep police officers “out of sight.”
According to the Post, Wenz said all of the school’s restrooms were technically still open to cops, but Brooklyn College is telling New York’s finest that it prefers that they stick to the broken down facilities in the isolated West End Building “rather than walking across either quad to use the bathroom.”
Wenz told the Post that “we prefer” were the “key words” in their approach. “If police are seen walking across the quad, some may interpret that as an emergency going on,” he said.
A reporter from the Post visited the first-floor men’s room in the WEB and discovered “a broken toilet with a hideously stained seat and an ‘OUT OF ORDER’ sign taped to the door of its stall” as well as “a total lack of soap and paper towels.”
Abe, a junior who’s majoring in psychology, told the Post that the shabby restroom is easily the worst place to go on the campus.
“The bathroom is horrendous,” he said. “You can only wash your hands in one of the sinks because the other two are broken.”
A college spokesperson helpfully explained: “Brooklyn College offers the use of our facilities to the NYPD and other public servants . . . as a courtesy.”
Meanwhile, an unnamed student is drafting another petition to keep the NYPD off campus entirely.
The student told The Excelsior that he wants college President Michelle Anderson to make it clear “that we do not want the NYPD on campus in any respect even if it’s just to take breaks and use bathroom.”
A number of students told the Post that they and their friends agreed with the sentiment, including a 21-year-old senior who said “people get triggered” by cops. “I know students from every background and across every major,” she said. “They don’t feel comfortable around cops. They just don’t. It makes safe spaces feel not so safe.”
You would think they would be more triggered by criminals since their campus has seen multiple cases of criminal mischief, robberies, larceny, harassment, and more in just the past few months, according to the crime log for Brooklyn College.
Nevertheless, students supporting the petition said that it was the very people whose job it is to keep them safe who made them feel unsafe.
A 20-year-old junior majoring in psychology told the Post that it was “weird” seeing cops on campus and added, “Your first instinct is to be scared.”
According to the Post, police who patrol the neighborhood around Brooklyn College are “outraged.”
“It’s not like we’re invading their campus,” one cop said. “We’re only going there to use the bathroom.”
Another officer called the students “insane,” telling the Post: “That protester culture is warping their f–king minds.”
NYPD sergeants-union chief Ed Mullins said: “Maybe it’s time these students, who fail to recognize the value of those protecting them, go take classes abroad — where they can have their bathrooms all to themselves.”
NYPD Lt. Dr. Darrin Porcher told Fox News he felt “disdain and disgust” when he heard about the student petition seeking to ban police from campus.
Porcher, who is also a college professor at Pace University, said: “First thing I thought of — why didn’t the faculty step in and move this to the side? That’s something that the faculty could have done. That doesn’t appear to be the case here.”
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