Charges were dismissed against three students involved in a protest against US border patrol agents at the University of Arizona that was captured on video.
The case was dismissed Friday at the request of prosecutors after they learned the university would conduct an administrative investigation into the 19 March protest in Tucson, said Amelia Cramer, chief deputy for the Pima county attorney’s office, noting the students could face punishments if they were found to have violated the university’s code of conduct.
The video shows a student standing in a hallway as two border patrol agents spoke inside a classroom to a student law-enforcement club. The protester repeatedly referred to the Border Patrol as the “murder patrol”.
“This is supposed to be a safe space for students, but they allow an extension of the KKK into campus,” said the student, who later declined an invitation to join the group inside the classroom.
Other students later joined in the chants of “murder patrol” as the agents walked out of the classroom and were followed to parking garage where they left in an SUV.
The video footage sparked anger among members of the union that represents Border Patrol agents. A few days later, the university announced that two students were being charged with interference with the peaceful conduct of an educational institution for their role in the protest. The third student was later charged.
Supporters say the three students – Denisse Moreno Melchor, Mariel Alexandra Bustamante and Marianna Ariel Coles-Curtis – had free speech rights to protest the agents’ presence. They started an online campaign to drop the case and staged demonstrations in Tucson. A protest planned for Monday outside Pima county Consolidated Justice Court, where the three were scheduled to be arraigned, has been called off.
In a joint statement, the three students said they wanted an apology from the university’s president “and a promise that he will never again jeopardize the safety or free speech of students in service of Border Patrol”. The three said they would continue to “demand all punitive measures against us permanently cease”.
The students also said they would not stop speaking out: “We know that Border Patrol doesn’t keep us safe. Ice doesn’t keep us safe. Campus Police don’t keep us safe. We must continue to fight for an end to the agencies which bring family separation, suffering, and death to our community members … We must all work together to end criminalization, detention, deportation, and deaths caused by state violence.”
Cramer pointed out the misdemeanor charges lodged against the three students had been filed by the University of Arizona police department, not prosecutors.
The university’s police department declined to comment on the dismissal, and university spokesman Chris Sigurdson didn’t immediately respond to a phone call and email seeking comment.
The Tucson chapter of the Border Patrol union didn’t immediately respond to phone calls for comment on Monday.