TAMPA, Fla. — Students at USF’s Tampa campus are more than 800 miles away from Memphis, but on Wednesday night, they gathered to remember Tyre Nichols and call for nationwide changes in policing.
“I feel like the police now-a-days aren’t really a sign of safety,” USF student Yuki Shao said. “It’s a sign to be precautious and watch what you’re doing.”
After a cross-country outcry for police reform following the deadly beating of Tyre Nichols, the students with the Tampa Bay Students for a Democratic Society are calling for an end to police brutality, and demanding change.
“There are stories like this across the country, even here in Tampa, of police misconduct,” another student, Enya Silva, said.
The students are calling for an end to “qualified immunity” that helps protect officers from criminal repercussions, and changes in the form of what they call “community control.”
“Elected bodies that represent the people that hold the police accountable and can control their budget and can control the hiring and firing of officers and can actually conduct investigations of misconduct,” Silva said.
While some argue that there are good and bad apples when it comes to policing…these students say it doesn’t make a difference…if the system itself is what needs to be fixed.
“We have this one chant that we say, ‘No good cop in a racist system.’” USF student Vaidehi Persad said. “That’s basically why we’re out here trying to change those things.”