State College mayor promises response to Osagie protesters’ demands following sit-in
Cheers erupted and several protesters embraced Thursday afternoon inside State College’s Municipal Building, after a two-hour sit-in culminated in the mayor’s promise he would discuss the coalition’s list of demands with other borough officials and then issue a response.
About a dozen protesters — a small group, by design — stood on the first floor of the building, which houses both the borough council chambers and the police department. They arrived in hopes of sharing a list of 10 demands with the mayor — demands that stemmed from the death of Osaze Osagie, a local African American man who was killed by police last March after being served a mental health warrant.
“Things like this are how you make change,” said 28-year-old activist Tierra Williams, a member of the 3/20 Coalition, named for the date Osagie was killed. “If we don’t have a conversation, nothing happens.”
After 45 minutes of singing and chanting, borough Manager Tom Fountaine joined protesters for a 20-minute dialogue. And, shortly after that, the mayor called and was put on speaker phone — he was working from home due to the pandemic — and listened to each of the protesters’ demands, which were also shared several times Sunday during the “Justice for Black Lives” rally that saw more than 1,000 protesters march downtown.
Those demands include the following:
- 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 (302 warrants)
- Revision to Standards of 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
- A ban on the use of knee holds and chokeholds
- Release the names of all officers involved in all shootings and fire Officer No. 1, the unnamed State College officer who shot Osagie
- 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
“I’ve heard you,” Mayor Ron Filippelli told them Thursday. “And I will definitely bring it to the attention of everyone in the borough ... and I can guarantee you you’ll have a response in a week.”
That dialogue didn’t seem like an inevitability early on. Protesters in face coverings arrived at the building shortly before 1 p.m., while two waited outside and held a “Black Lives Matter” sign to passing cars. Inside, they sang “This Little Light of Mine” — one protester brought a tambourine — and shouted “No justice! No peace!” But when one protester kept hitting the automatic door opener to the police entrance, so officers could better hear the chants, one officer arrived and locked the door.
But the protesters continued, believing the police could still hear them. Fountaine, dressed in a Penn State mask and salmon-colored dress shirt, addressed the protesters soon thereafter and answered questions about department policy and what the borough is trying to change.
“We’re working hard to try and address these issues,” Fountaine told the Centre Daily Times afterward. “We recognize the issues of systemic racism are real in this country, and we’re committed to doing everything we can to make sure that this community looks at all of these issues through a racial equity lens.”
Added protest organizer Melanie Morrison, 40: “We need to talk about how to fix this as a community, and that’s why we’re here.”
Organizers arrived Thursday to foster a dialogue with the borough, and that’s why they said they didn’t want to invite hundreds of others to join them in a small space that might’ve prevented constructive speech. Plus, they said, there were well over 1,000 protesters Sunday when the demands were made in front of the Municipal Building — and no one reached out then.
“Progress happens through protest,” Williams said, “but it also happens through policy.”
Osagie, 29, was killed on March 20, 2019, at his apartment along Old Boalsburg Road. According to police, he brandished a five-inch serrated steak knife and, within 20 seconds, was shot three times — once in the left shoulder and twice in the back.
District Attorney Bernie Cantorna announced last May that police were justified in their use of force. No body cams were in use at the time of Osagie’s death.
Two large-scale rallies have happened in State College over the last two weeks, in the wake of the death of George Floyd, an African American man who died May 25 when a Minneapolis officer knelt on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. A third rally will take place again at noon Sunday by the Allen Street Gates.
“We’re not threatening any violence and we’re not threatening to harm anyone,” Williams told the mayor, “but we are going to cause discourse and uproar until justice is served for Osaze and until changes are made within your police department, especially when it comes to serving your 302 warrants.”
This story was originally published June 11, 2020 at 5:29 PM.
