Black Texas college student says police stormed her dorm room over false threat

Local authorities and officials from Stephen F. Austin State University (SFA) in Nacogdoches, Texas, are investigating an incident in which a Black freshman allegedly had the police falsely called on her by her white roommates.

Civil rights attorney Randall Kallinen, who is representing SFA freshman Christin Evans, said Monday in a press conference that the 17-year-old student was asleep in her dorm room during the early morning of Sept. 14 when university police officers busted into her room with their guns drawn at 3 a.m.

“Their daughter was sleeping and awoken at 3 o’clock in the morning by local police with flashlights shining out and their guns drawn. This could have been a Breonna Taylor circumstance,” Kallinen said.

Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, became a focal point of nationwide protests decrying police brutality and systemic racism this summer after she was shot and killed in her own home by plainclothes Louisville police officers in March.

“I feel shaken. I don’t even know how to think. I can’t sleep at night because of this. It has made me really paranoid,” Evans said Monday.

Kallinen asserted that the incident, known as “swatting,” was spearheaded by Evans’s three white roommates.

The roommates reportedly told their resident assistant (RA) that Evans had scissors and was threatening to hurt them, prompting the RA to call campus police.

“They had falsely accused Christin of having scissors and threatening to stab people,” he said.

In a statement, John Fields, chief of the university police, said, “The university is investigating a racially diverse group of students in an incident involving a false report to the university police department. The students responsible will be held accountable for their actions at every possible level.”

A message from John Fields, chief of police for SFA’s University Police Department: pic.twitter.com/yEOG65f2Vc

— Stephen F. Austin State University (@SFASU) September 28, 2020

“We will not have this at SFA,” University President Scott Gordon said.

The Hill reached out to SFA for further comment.