Harvard students, administrators, and alumni condemned Monday’s early morning “swatting” incident, in which five Harvard University Police Department officers raided a Leverett House suite in response to a false 911 call.
Four Harvard College seniors in the suite, who all happened to be black, were ordered into the hallway at gunpoint by campus police officers at about 4:15 a.m. The students were escorted to a neighboring suite.
“We felt our lives were in danger. We are traumatized,” she said.
His statement also included an update from Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) chief Victor Clay.
“We acknowledge that the presence of police officers in the early morning hours in one of the College’s residential Houses can, and in this case did, raise fears and anxiety,” Clay said.
The police chief then explained the reason for the raid. At approximately 3:23 a.m., HUPD received three calls from a male claiming to be a former Harvard student who had been “kicked out.”
The caller told police he was in Leverett House on the Harvard campus, holding a female hostage that he had tried to kill—but she was still alive. In the third call, the man indicated he was armed, threatening to shoot any police officers if he saw them.
HUPD tried to phone two female students that occupied the room specified by the caller, but the ladies did not answer due to the late hour. The officers then knocked on the door, identified themselves, and entered the room using a key. “The steps taken by HUPD are aligned with law enforcement protocols, which HUPD officers are trained on,” the police chief’s statement read.
In a statement, the Harvard Black Alumni Society (HBAS) said, “HBAS is horrified and upset that Black students at Harvard endured such trauma in their own homes, where they should have been assured the utmost safety.”
HBAS President Monica M. Clark said while she understands the need for a swift police response, “I still feel like there has to be some sort of balance between managing those kinds of risks and making sure students feel safe and comfortable in their home.”
Eliot Faculty Deans Stephanie A. Paulsell and Kevin J. Madigan worded things more strongly when they emailed campus residents Tuesday evening: “There are echoes in this incident of some of the most troubling aspects of life in this country—the epidemic of gun violence, the disproportionate weight of policing on communities of color.”
Comments on the Harvard Crimson’s article criticized the faculty for “throwing the cops under the bus.”
“HUPD had no choice but to initiate a raid,” one person wrote. “If this had been a real call, our discussions might have been about the slow police response, which led to a vengeful male student murdering a female student in her suite.”
The HUPD is working with the FBI to investigate the “swatting” incident further.