On Friday, Oct. 30, officers from the California Department of Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) detained and arrested a Pomona College student on campus. Officers dragged the student from the pavement area outside Clark V Residence Hall onto North College Way between 10:14 and 10:17 p.m., where they were handcuffed. The student later received a citation for battery of a peace officer; multiple eyewitnesses contested the validity of the charge.
ABC was invited to campus by the LA County Fire Department, according to an Oct. 31 email from the Associated Students of Pomona College (ASPC) to the Pomona community.
At no point did officers show badges to the detained student, or read them their Miranda rights. Multiple students present said the officers’ claims about the detained student’s violation were unclear and changed throughout the altercation, initially alleging underage drinking as the charge. The student is 21 and was not holding an alcoholic beverage.
Officers had initially interrogated a group of Pomona students before grabbing the soon-to-be-detained student.
“[We] were trying to gain information on why people in jackets, sweaters, flannels, Bass Pro Shop hats were grabbing onto us, when most of us were 21 years old and above,” Zena Almeida-Warwin PO ’28, who was present in the group, said.
Multiple eyewitnesses said that officers’ identities remained ambiguous, with several dressed in plainclothes, and not identifying themselves until pressed repeatedly.
“We were all on private property, approached and grabbed and interrogated and harassed by this group of people,” Almeida-Warwin continued. “We were under the complete assumption that we were being kidnapped and assaulted by people pretending to be service officers.”
In the statement, the ASPC wrote, “We have been told that the ABC and CPD will likely be present tonight (Halloween) across the consortium. ABC officers are not in uniform, but may have a ‘Police’ vest, and are in unmarked vehicles.”
Words by Nadia Hsu and Claire Welch | Photo by Jun Kwon
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