WSU PD adresses Hargraves’ trial, campus arrests

Senate approves joint resolution to call for amendment to EP 15

WSU+Police+Sgt.+Dawn+Daniels+answers+questions+about+the+decision+to+not+retry+the+sexual+misconduct+case+during+an+ASWSU+meeting+Wednesday+in+the+CUB.

NICOLE LIU

WSU Police Sgt. Dawn Daniels answers questions about the decision to not retry the sexual misconduct case during an ASWSU meeting Wednesday in the CUB.

JAKOB THORINGTON, Former Evergreen reporter

WSU Police Department Administrative Sgt. Dawn Daniels spoke as a guest during last night’s ASWSU Senate meeting and gave an update about the former Pullman Police Sgt. Jerry Daniel Hargraves’ trial regarding sexual misconduct.

Daniels said the victim does not want to participate any further and to her understanding, the case has been dismissed.

“It’s completely her right, and I completely respect her and understand why she wouldn’t want to appear in court,” Daniels said.

ASWSU President Quinton Berkompas said the results of the case were disappointing but completely supported the case not being retried.

“The victim’s intentions need to be the number one priority in this situation,” he said.

Daniels also discussed the investigation WSU’s Office of Civil Rights Compliance and Investigation is conducting on the WSU Police Department regarding arrest rates of black students. She said the department opened their computers to CRCI before The Daily Evergreen article that reported the rates of arrest was published.

“We’re still waiting for them to finish,” she said.

Daniels explained to the Senate how the department issues citations. She said she talked to Berkompas and ASWSU Vice President Jhordin Prescott about officers’ discretion with arrests and how the arrest process works.

“All of our cases are open to community standards because we’re all university officials,” she said. “The idea behind that is educational resources and everything else that we need for our students to succeed.”

She said her office also has the option to forward charges to the prosecutor’s office, where most misdemeanor drug and alcohol charges are referred to.

Students with no prior convictions can go through a permit system in which the prosecutor’s office gives the student a limited unsupervised probation period, Daniels said.

“As long as they don’t get arrested within that time frame, it basically doesn’t exist as an arrest,” she said.

ASWSU Senator Jocelyn Granados said Black Student Union President Makayia Thompson and the rest of the WSU community should be asked for feedback about what they want done and be kept in the loop.

“If that was supposed to fix something and it’s already in place and its not fixing it, then something else has to be the solution,” Thompson said. “I don’t know what that solution is, but that’s them—they can find that out.”

The Senate passed a joint resolution between ASWSU and GPSA calling for “Citizenship and Immigration Status” as a protected class in WSU’s Executive Policy 15. The policy covers discrimination and protected class policy at WSU.

According to the resolution, over 500 undocumented students attend WSU, and the WSU Student Affairs’ Initiatives includes a commitment that the university is an undocumented student-friendly institution.

Matthew Sutherland, GPSA vice president of legislative affairs, said his department is looking to voice strong student support to administrators to change the policy.

“This is a huge step in actually making this really happen by the end of this year,” Sutherland said.