More than a year after Osagie shooting, group continues push to name involved officers
Getting municipal leaders or elected officials to change decades-old practices can take a significant amount of time, and that is partially why about five dozen protesters gathered Tuesday in downtown Bellefonte.
The borough’s Victorian buildings and the Centre County Courthouse served as a backdrop for the latest protest organized in response to the police killings of Osaze Osagie, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others.
The 3/20 Coalition beseeched county District Attorney Bernie Cantorna to publicly identify the three State College police officers who responded when Osagie was fatally shot in March 2019.
“There is a lack of accountability and transparency,” organizer Melanie Morrison said. “You have the police policing themselves, and we’re left to just trust that system is working and that they are being fair to the community, as well as to the officers. That’s just absolutely not the case.”
Tuesday’s protest was at least the fifth in Centre County in the past four weeks. Three groups gathered in downtown State College on consecutive weekends, while another group gathered last week in Philipsburg.
A central tenet of the protests has been equality for Black men and women or a condemnation of racially divisive remarks, though each has had varying connections to Centre County.
Tuesday’s demonstration was the first this summer that focused solely on Osagie, a 29-year-old State College man who was fatally shot after moving toward borough police officers in a narrow hallway with a knife while they were attempting to serve a mental health warrant.
Some wore homemade masks and chanted “No justice, no peace. No racist, police,” while others held signs that read “Justice for Osaze Osagie.”
“The community does not feel safe not knowing the name of the officers,” Morrison said. “It’s been something since we’ve been asserting since day No. 1.”
State police Sgt. William Slaton, heritage affairs commander in the department’s Equality and Inclusion Office, said there was no “racial animus” in the shooting.
Any reasonable officer would have reacted the way the borough police officers did, Slaton said during a May 2019 press conference after Cantorna announced the officers would not be charged.
An internal State College Police Department review found each officer acted in accordance with their training.
Cantorna declined to identify the officers, a decision in line with his office’s long-standing policy to not identify those who are not charged with a crime.
The District Attorney’s Office receives police investigations daily and often does not recommended charges for a litany of reasons, but one constant has been not identifying either public employees or private citizens if they are not charged.
The county’s top prosecutor reasserted that position Tuesday, saying he doesn’t have “any intent of releasing the names of the officers involved.”
“I believe the law needs to treat everyone equally — whether it be a police (officer) or a citizen — which is how I reviewed the use-of-force in this case,” Cantorna said. “The same standard I applied to these officers I would apply to any citizen of Centre County.”
Morrison argued public employees should be held to a different standard, and Cantorna said he “agreed completely.” The two disagree about how best to achieve that.
For Cantorna, releasing a 228-page report, speaking at a press conference and attending multiple community meetings to explain his decision is “well beyond” what happens during a routine investigation and review.
Cantorna also reiterated his concern about the role the mental health system played in Osagie’s death.
Cantorna said last May that the community should take a “hard look” at local and state mental health procedures, while Slaton said “the mental health system in this country and this state needs to change.”
“I believe we need to make some changes about how we deliver health care in crisis mode,” Cantorna said Tuesday. “Give a heads up to city councils, borough managers and the Centre County commissioners — they’re gonna have to reallocate some resources.”
Identifying the officers who responded to Osagie’s apartment is one of 10 requests made by the 3/20 Coalition. Other requests include:
- Implementation of a Community Advisory Board to address discrimination, bias and racism in local government and police
- Divestment of guns during the service of mental health checks and mental health warrants
- Revision to standard operating procedures, which emphasize de-escalation strategies to be used during engagement and consequences for failure to execute
- Public access to officer misconduct information and disciplinary history when death results
- Public release of protocol and body cam footage for officers accused of misuse of force and race-based policing
- Financial compensation to the Osagie family
- Transparency and the release of policing data regarding policing, with special attention to race and ethnicity
- A reallocation of funding away from the local police department to programs that address root causes of suffering and violence
State College Councilman Dan Murphy became the first to publicly announce a plan in response to the community activist group’s requests.
His six-part plan, developed into a resolution, includes reallocating funds from the police department’s budget to support the development of a mental health response team, enhanced community engagement efforts and funding other community services that reduce the need for police intervention. According to the 3/20 Coalition, identification of officers involved in Osagie’s death, and financial compensation to the family are key items missing in the resolution, which the State College Borough Council approved Tuesday evening.
This story was originally published June 23, 2020 at 5:27 PM.