NJ College Supports Police Account After Guns Pointed At Students

GLASSBORO, NJ — The details may be different, but the heart of the matter remains the same, Rowan University spokesman Joe Cardona said Thursday morning.

He was referring to the Glassboro Police Department’s statement released on Wednesday concerning the details that lead to the stop of two students on the Glassboro-based university’s campus earlier this week.

Police stopped a car with two students in it on Monday afternoon on the campus. A video that has gone viral shows the cops pointing guns at the students in the car. Initially, Cardona referred to the incident as a case of mistaken identity, as the university believed the stop was made after police received a 911 call about an armed robbery.

On Wednesday, police said the students were in a car that was outside a retail store in the Collegetown Shopping Center on North Delsea Drive when a man pointed a gun at the car. The man, described as a heavyset black man with puffy hair, then got into the driver's seat, an eyewitness told police that were already on the scene investigating an unrelated shoplifting incident.

The eyewitness described the car as a black Dodge Charger and pointed it out to police officers as it left the shopping center, according to police. Officers maintained direct visual contact with the vehicle until it was eventually stopped in the area of North Campus Drive on the property of Rowan University where further investigation was conducted, police said.

“The Glassboro Police Department was not issuing a statement,” Cardona said Thursday morning. “In the absence of any official information, we had pieces we thought were true. ... They might not have been responding to a 911 call, but they were still responding to a call at the time and they were still pursuing a car in which they believed there was a gun. The heart of the issue is still the same, but the details were skewed.”

Cardona supports the police department’s account of the incident, and said none of the university’s response as far as students are concerned is any different.

Read more here: Video Shows Cops Pointing Guns At Students On NJ College Campus

Altaif Hassan told nj.com he was “never so sure he was going to die.” He said he was giving 18-year-old Giavanna Roberson a ride when he noticed a police car with its lights on behind him. He said a cop had his gun aimed at him.

"Am I not supposed to feel safe on my own campus?"Hassan said, according to NBC. "There's students all around and guns are being pointed at a car in the middle of the crowd!" The university is concerned that all students on campus will feel the same way.

Cardona said the university wants to help the students work through what they're feeling. It has been reaching out to groups of people to see how they are handling the situation. The same day the incident happened, the university sent out an alert to students explaining the situation.

The students had reached out to Rowan's Student Government Association in the wake of the encounter, according to a Twitter post from the SGA that can be found below. The university will host a forum at the student center on Friday, Oct. 5, 11 a.m.

Image via YouTube