Clark Report: 'Credible' Students Mistreated In Protest Arrests

WORCESTER, MA — A June 1 clash between Worcester tactical police and a group of protesters in Main South occurred after officers feared for their safety amid a crowd of up to 75 protesters, and because police were on high-alert after a violent protest in Boston, a new report says.

Clark University on Tuesday released an independent report on the June 1 incident, which the school commissioned after complaints about how police behaved while arresting four Clark students. The report concluded that the four students' arrests were unnecessarily rough —several were injured, and one said an officer called her "a fat b----" during her arrest.

"None of the four Clark students whom we interviewed acted violently or destructively," the report says. "While two of them clearly were aware of the orders to disperse, the other two may not have been and apparently did nothing else to warrant their arrests."

The report also claims both police and students may have misrepresented what happened.

There were "misstatements and exaggerations in some of what we have been told and some of

what is in police reports," the report says.

The report was compiled by Bowditch & Dewey attorneys Michael Angelini and Brian Mullin. Angelini has close ties to City Hall, having served on a committee that helped bring the Pawtucket Red Sox to Worcester, and is the District 1 representative on the Worcester Redevelopment Authority.

The June 1 incident followed a peaceful anti-police brutality protest held at City Hall. However, city officials were on alert for potential trouble following a May 31 protest in Boston where police and protesters clashed.

"Accordingly, city officials coordinated with the state police and National Guard to provide contingency assistance to the WPD," the report says. "The WPD Tactical Unit was placed on alert and teams from the National Guard and the state police trained in crowd and riot control were positioned at remote locations prior to the start of the protest rally."

The turning point on June 1 came when a small group of protesters marched down Main Street. At around 10 p.m. near Hammond and May streets, a lone Worcester officer in a police cruiser "became concerned about his safety" when the protesters approached him, the report says. That's when about 40 Worcester police tactical squad officers responded to the scene.

The tactical squad pushed the group farther south along Main Street. Protesters threw objects at the police, and one officer was burned by a flare. One 18-year-old was arrested after he was spotted threatening police with Molotov cocktails. The tactical police fired stinger grenades, pepper spray, and plastic bullets capped by sponges, also called "sponge rounds." Videos shared with Patch show that some protesters were injured by the police weapons.

At around 11 p.m., three Clark students, Olivia Crum, Lyndsay deManbey and Sarah Drapeau, ventured out of their homes to watch the protests. A fourth student, Jay Verchin, began streaming the events on Facebook near midnight.

Verichin was arrested when he surprised an officer, according to the report, and incurred scrapes and bruises when he was "taken to the ground and handcuffed." Drapeau ran toward Verichin when she saw him getting arrested. An officer ordered her to stop and lay down in the street. An officer put his knee on her back, and she complained to the officer that she had breathing issues. She was eventually rolled over onto her side, the report says.

The report found "credible" evidence that police punched deManbey while he was laying on the ground. He was left with scrapes across his face that were still visible on June 17 when he was interviewed by the attorneys. An officer stepped on and broke Crum's cell phone during the incident, the report found.

"Arrests are not polite events, but they should involve only those actions which are required to accomplish them," one of the conclusions in the report says. "Even in the situation described in this report, that standard applies. Actions taken during the arrests of the Clark students did not meet that standard."

On June 2, Clark President David Angel and president-elect David Fithian announced the school would stop hiring off-duty Worcester officers for campus events due to complaints about the protest arrests. That sparked backlash from city officials, but the college has not reversed that decision following the release of the report.

In a statement Tuesday, Angel and Fithian said that the Bowditch & Dewey report will "inform the broader dialogue about policing on our campus" in the coming months.

"As we are all aware, what took place the night of June 1 occurred in the context of extensive and pre-existing calls to address systemic racism, end police violence against Black people, and, specifically for Clark, re-examine approaches to campus safety and the inclusive environment we have always sought to foster, especially as all these matters relate to the experience of African American/Black members of our community," the statement says.