Many Boston-area students unaware campus police have semiautomatic rifles

Photo credit: David Fox

Northeastern University’s recently announced plan to equip its officers with semiautomatic rifles has not gone over well. On the list of people opposed to the move: Campus group NU Students Against Institutional Discrimination (SAID), some faculty and, according to the Boston Globe, the Boston Police Department.

But the Boston school is far from alone in owning tactical rifles. According to an Inside Higher Ed report, more than 60 schools’ police departments nationwide now carry military-grade rifles. In many cases, they’ve been doing so for years, mostly in response to school shootings.

But not too many students seem to know this.

In Boston alone, at least four other schools — Boston University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Massachusetts-Boston and Tufts — already equip their officers with these rifles.

BU spokesman Colin Riley said that the BU Police Department has had them for “several years,” while Tufts spokesman Patrick Collins said school police officers have been equipped with the semiautomatic patrol rifles since 2008, since the shooting at Virginia Tech.

The lack of transparency in the decision to bring semi-automatic weapons on campus has raised concerns.

The Boston Police Department was not consulted by Northeastern, according to multiple reports, and Lieutenant Michael McCarthy of the BPD told Campus Safety Magazine that “we’re concerned when we see . . . campus police departments that are within the neighborhoods of the city make decisions without including Boston police in the process. Decisions like this should involve full community involvement and transparency.”

Boston University sophomore Jenna Perlman said she had no idea that the school’s police was equipped with semiautomatic rifles.

“Wow,” Perlman said, stunned. “I’m very surprised, honestly.”

And knowing the guns are there doesn’t make her feel safer, she said. “It just feels like a huge overreaction. There are so many police shootings and examples of police using unnecessary force. I’m not saying that these police officers weren’t doing what they thought was right, but I do think them having rifles could lead to more police violence.”

Tommy Gartman, a sophomore at Tufts, also said she didn’t know about her school’s riles, and echoed Perlman’s sentiment that while excess force is sometimes needed to stop serious outside threats, semiautomatic firepower could be extreme for a college police force.

“The only benefit I could possibly see from officers having these semiautomatic rifles would be to better combat an active shooter with high-powered weapons,” he said. “However, I have never felt unsafe on my campus and frankly feel a bit more unsettled that these rifles are present in the hands of Tufts police officers.”

MIT freshman Tiffany Tao was floored to find out that campus police had semiautomatic rifles, and said, “I’m not sure (it makes me) feel completely safe. … I think this is a very important topic to tell students since it would definitely affect (us).”

SAID at NU released a statement in opposition of the rifles that noted the decision was made with the “without engaging the larger community of students, local residents and faculty members. … NUPD has not been transparent in its actions.”

It also noted: “As a coalition centered on inclusion and diversity, we recognize the complex sociopolitical relationship between police forces and communities of color. Limited training in cultural competency and racial sensitivity in conjunction with the excessive use of force by police departments negatively impact Black and brown individuals.”

A petition has been posted on change.org by Northeastern student Marley Kimelman to “keep semiautomatic rifles out of the hands or our campus police,” which currently has some 1,400 supporters.