Dive Brief:

• A newly released video shows white Arizona State University police officers wrestling a black professor to the ground during her arrest in May, as well as the verbal squabbling that preceded the physical altercation.
• The video, recorded from a police car’s dashboard camera, shows the professor, Ersula Ore, being stopped for jaywalking and a police officer demanding that she produce an ID, which she refuses to do. After she is eventually handcuffed, she kicks him in the shin.
• The video is garnering public support for Ore, an assistant professor of English, who was charged with aggravated assault. She claims that she was racially profiled and that she acted in self defense.

Dive Insight:

Obviously, this kind of publicity is not good for Arizona State, and it may have been swept under the rug if not for the release of the video. The Arizona Critical Ethnic Studies, a network of academics in Arizona, has issued a statement criticizing ASU police and calling for a thorough investigation by the university. “In a state and metropolitan region in which racial profiling has been proven to be widespread, the ASU administration’s lack of concern for the well-being of an ASU community member of color is unacceptable," the statement says.

An online petition calling for the police department to drop the charges against Ore and issue an apology has gathered more than 7,000 signatures. Arizona State has issued a statement declaring that it has found “no evidence of inappropriate actions by the ASUPD officers involved” and that an outside law enforcement agency has been asked to conduct an independent review of whether excessive force was used and whether racial motivations were a factor.