Prosecutor Determines Princeton Police Followed Protocol in Professor's Arrest

Princeton, NJ -- The Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office’s initial investigation into the arrest of a black Princeton University professor by Princeton Police reveals no wrongdoing on the part of the officer, the Princeton Packet reports.

Princeton University Professor of African Studies Imani Perry was scheduled to meet with the Prosecutor’s Office last week, but canceled that meeting, according to the report. Unless that meeting is rescheduled, the case will be considered closed.

Perry was arrested on Saturday, Feb. 6, on an active warrant issued by the Princeton Municipal Court.

She was allegedly going 67 mph in a 45 mph zone on Mercer Street when an officer pulled her over and subsequently arrested her because of two unpaid parking tickets.

She was released after posting $130 bail, but subsequently complained about the way she was treated by police after her arrest.

Last week, police released a video of the arrest.

Perry responded in a note published online that said the video “failed to show most of what I objected to.”

In “The End,” she wrote that she doesn’t disagree with police when they say they followed standard protocol.

“My point is this: regardless of whether it is consistent with standard procedure and protocol, I should not have been handcuffed to a table for a parking ticket,” she wrote. “Moreover, if it were five parking tickets I should not have been handcuffed to a table. A parking ticket is not an indication that a person poses a physical threat. The ‘pat down’ for weapons that I experienced at the hands of a male officer also did not make sense as I did not pose a physical threat and I was not stopped on suspicion of posing a violent threat to anyone.”

She went on to say procedures and protocol are not gospel, and that if police “were not authorized and encouraged to arrest people for small violations then Eric Garner and Sandra Bland would still be alive.”

She also said it would be the last public statement she would make on the issue.

Princeton officials have said the town will investigate whether people should be arrested at all for a parking ticket.