Update: Campus Reform reports that one of the officers involved in the raid of the student’s dorm room has been fired.
University of Kentucky Police Chief Joe Monroe released a statement Wednesday afternoon announcing the termination.
“After a thorough internal investigation, the officer in question has been terminated from his employment at the University of Kentucky, effective immediately,” Monroe said in the statement.
View the original story below:
The University of Kentucky Police Department says it is investigating several of its officers, Campus Reform reports, after a viral YouTube video posted this week showed them walking into a belligerent student’s dorm room and threatening him with expulsion.
The video, which is titled simply “I hate cops,” has been viewed more than 243,000 times on YouTube.
At the beginning of the video, a student alone in his dorm room appears to be setting up his video camera. He positions it to capture a scene near the door.
University of Kentucky police officers soon arrive, and claim to be investigating reports that alcohol had recently been dumped from the dorm room’s window. The officers ask permission to search the room for alcohol.
The student instead heckles the officers and demands they produce a warrant. The police, citing their role as university administrators who have the right to enter university property unannounced, reply that they don’t need one.
“If you didn’t need a warrant,” the student responds, “wouldn’t you be in my room right now?”
“Listen man, do you want to be kicked out of this university?” the officer asks at one point. “I can pave that road.”
After a heated exchange, the officers enter the room and briefly search for alcohol. They eventually leave empty-handed, but not before the student taunts one of them for wearing braces.
The official policy of the University of Kentucky is that campus police officers can enter — but not necessarily search — a student’s dorm room without permission, so long as they are conducting a routine safety inspection, responding to an emergency situation, or investigating a reasonable suspicion that someone in the room is both violating university policy and refusing to answer the door.
The student’s video is just under seven minutes long, and the language is frequently explicit.
Watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X3VZ9NLL3Q