The University and its private police force benefit from our silence about their authoritarian conduct. All complaints filed against the police are currently internally investigated, and the nature of the complaints is not shared with the public. This allows them to control the narrative, avoid public scrutiny, and manufacture consent for an armed body that polices Baltimore’s citizens but is not accountable to them.
Even if your experience with the JHPD was not union-related, please feel free to use this resource to log complaints so we can maintain a publicly available repository for all Baltimoreans to view! If you had an encounter you’d like to file a complaint about, but don’t know how to go about it, please fill out the form anyway, and a union steward will be happy to help you! TRU-UE 197 stands firmly against the JHPD.
We started this repository in order to document our experience of Johns Hopkins using its private military to union bust, crack down on student protestors, and intimidate, harass, and repress Pro-Palestinian speech and demonstration on campus. We hope this can be a shared community resource that helps us all organize towards real safety and community care as we build coalitions across organized labor, students, and our neighbors. We keep us safe!
JHPD HALL OF SHAME!
"JHU's use of a militant police force to quell dissent is authoritarian, and should be stopped at all costs. Protest and peaceful assembly are a right, and using an armed police force to escort union members for merely passing out fliers is an abuse of power."
Nick Speeney
TRU-UE Member
"We need to invest in community-building services at JHU, not a police state that only serves to threaten student safety on campus."
Mira Swartzlander
TRU-UE Member
"One of the largest landlords and employers in the city is using a private army to crack down on free speech. A labor union of teachers and researchers is trying to protect their members as they protest peacefully.
Which side are you on?"
Martin Yepes
TRU-UE Member
"The JHU student code of conduct and other related policies are written in vague, imprecise language, which suits them just fine. Not only are these policies selectively enforced--JHU also has a history of unilaterally changing its policies and then enforcing them retroactively.
This was my experience during the 2019 anti-private police organizing on campus, where the university changed the language of the student code in order to pursue reprisals against students. Some students beat the charges on the basis that the code contradicted the university's own policies on academic freedom of expression and its written commitments to first amendment rights. But it goes to show that the university will not hesitate to apply its own arbitrary rules over legal precedent.
It's ridiculous that they're wielding campus policies as a cudgel against legally protected union activity!"
Former Graduate Worker
TRU-UE Member