Skip to main contentA peaceful protest at the University of Portland was rudely interrupted last week when a roguish security officer stormed onto the scene--with an agenda that seemed hardly nonviolent.
About 20 students had gathered on UP's academic quad to bang on drums and announce their opposition to the looming war with Iraq, one of about 400 campus protests held nationally on March 5. "People were just having fun," says Ryan Bemis, a senior at the private Catholic school in North Portland. "It was a good spirit."
Then campus cop Gary Shafer showed up.
"He was yelling at us to shut up," says junior Molly Malone. "Suddenly, he just rushed toward me with this scary look in his eyes. He came up at me from behind and was trying to wrestle my drumstick away from me."
Bemis says that when he tried to break up the scuffle, Shafer hurled him down a short flight of stairs and, according to Malone, called him a "stupid punk."
"He told us that this was not a democracy and when we came to school we signed our rights away," Bemis adds.
As the protesters tried to defuse the situation, Shafer allegedly ripped down a sign they had made and stuffed it in a trash can. When senior Shelly Glaze went to retrieve the sign for recycling, Shafer tried to tear it away from her. One of the protesters caught the skirmish on film.
Shafer left, and soon afterward more campus security personnel arrived to make sure that no one was hurt. The protest went on.
School officials have placed Shafer on paid leave while they investigate the incident, a process they hope to wrap up this week. "Obviously, this is not something that the university condones," spokesman John Furey told WW. "I don't know what prompted it."
But Bemis has his theory. "All of this violence came from a lack of dialogue," he says.
WWeek 2015