Cops Called on Black UMass Amherst Employee Walking to Work

An unidentified party called the police last Friday on a black man walking to his job at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, prompting police to shut down the building and question the innocent worker. The Daily Hampshire Gazette reports Monday that the caller warned officers that a “very agitated” African-American man walked into an administrative building carrying a “large duffel bag…hanging off a strap, very heavy hanging on the ground.” The man in question, a case worker at the school’s disability services office named Reg Andrade, says he was approached soon after by two police officers. Andrade, who claims the police have been called on him multiple times at Amherst for no reason, was disturbed by the incident, saying he believes it to be yet another instance of racial profiling. “How can somebody just walk by me, not even speaking, and try to discern that I was agitated?” Andrade old the Gazette. “This is when it becomes dangerous, when people know how to push the buttons of law enforcement … Those were those strong key buzzwords: agitated black man dragging a heavy bag.”

In a statement, Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy spoke about the need to reconcile the concern for public safety with the consequences of racial profiling. “For our community, this is a difficult matter,” he wrote. “We are living at the intersection of two very trying issues. We must all do our part to respond quickly to perceived threats of potential violence on campus, and we must build an inclusive community that respects everyone and rejects profiling.”