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SWAT training leads to protest at WSUV

Students, faculty upset event held on MLK observance

The Columbian
Published: January 19, 2010, 12:00am

Across campus from volunteers honoring Martin Luther King Jr., law enforcement officers armed with assault rifles trained to prepare for a Virginia Tech-style tragedy.

The SWAT training collided head-on with King’s practice of nonviolent social change, student and faculty protesters said.

“I don’t think this should be happening on our campus, especially today,” said Sky Wilson, a member of the Washington State University Vancouver Social and Environmental Justice Club. “I see this as complete opposition to the celebration of Martin Luther King.”

Students and faculty protested by occupying a multimedia classroom building they’d been asked to vacate to make way for the training, which was moved to the campus’s administration building. The training had been in the works for more than a year, but students and staff say they learned of it last week.

Brenda Alling, WSU Vancouver director of marketing and communications, said the training was scheduled on Monday to allow public safety officers the opportunity to prepare for a disaster while the campus was not heavily populated.

The school’s office of public safety trained along with the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.

“We didn’t think it would be troublesome to have this training contained on one end of campus while we had MLK Day going on in a building on another end of campus,” Alling said.

She said Chancellor Hal Dengerink sent a one-page response to students and faculty upset about the scheduled training.

In Dengerink’s response, he acknowledged their concerns, but told them the school is “working very hard to prepare our campus in case something horrible, God forbid, did happen,” Alling said.

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