Even in the years before the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor ignited a reckoning about systemic racism and police violence in the United States, it was hard not to notice a trend that saw people call the police on those around them for frivolous reasons.
And while this is makes for a waste of police resources and a major inconvenience for everyone involved at the best of times, there are sadly no shortage of cases in which such incidents have shown life-threatening consequences for Black Americans.
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Such cases have underscored the need to reserve such calls for true emergencies and in some areas, have even seen legislators introduce new laws against using 911 services for the purpose of racial profiling.
And it’s with this context in mind that one Georgia student is taking a bizarre incident that unfolded at her college so seriously.
On March 31, a Georgia State University student named Bria Blake uploaded a TikTok speaking out against a professor at her school named Carissa Gray.
In this video, she explained that two of her classmates named Kamryn and Taylor entered their lecture hall two minutes after class was scheduled to start and unpacked their equipment to take notes.
Once they were in position, Gray told them to leave because they were two minutes late, at which point Taylor refused, saying that they had both paid to be there.
Gray then left the room and returned with two armed campus police officers.
Despite the fact that they were enrolled in that class and the door was left wide open, one of the officers then held their belongings and told them they would be charged with trespassing if they didn’t leave.
By the time this had happened, Blake said, “Both students, a woman and a man were crying because they were so terrified of what could happen to them.”
Nonetheless, they did leave and filed a report with both the department head and the student life department.
In the follow-up video we see here, Taylor made an appearance to thank Blake’s commenters for their support and Blake herself for speaking on her and Kamryn’s behalf.
According to Insider , neither she or Kamryn were arrested as they were not found to have committed any crime and the school said they were investigating Gray.
As WGCL reported , a representative from the school said Gray is no longer teaching in-person classes and both students have since been invited to meet with the school provost and the police chief to discuss the incident.
In the original video available here, Blake called for those with the power to do so to “stop weaponizing police against Black people.”
In her words, “Calling the police on two students for being two minutes late to class is extremely unreasonable and dangerous.”
