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Tuesday, 07 November 2006 17:28 |
From Staff Reports
A UNC Asheville campus police officer has been temporarily suspended with pay while school officials investigate allegations that he posted images on a Web site of a vandalized wall that had been constructed by student activists and defaced with violent threats.
Officer Brandon Hunnicutt has been placed on investigative leave, according to school officials, while a special committee determines whether he violated the universityës employee conduct code by posting pictures of the defaced wall to his profile on facebook.com, a popular social networking site.
The
wall in question was erected temporarily on the schoolës quadrangle by
the Socialist Unity League, a campus group that sought to symbolically
express solidarity with Palestinians by inviting students to paint
approved message on it.
The UNCA wall represented the border wall recently constructed by Israel, according to a spokesperson for the group.
In the photos on
Hunnicuttës Web site, the wall had been vandalized with spray-painted
messages, including some that said, "Kill the socialists" and "Destroy
Palestine."
Gregg Goddard, a
student and member of the American Pride Organization, a group on
facebook.com that opposes the SUL, was shown standing next to the
defaced wall and later admitted that he had written the messages on the
wall on Oct. 27.
When their
request was denied by the SUL students, they then proceded to spray
paint pro-war and pro-Bush statements on the grass, prompting the SUL
to complain to the campus police.
"We, of course,
are taking this very seriously," Merianne Epstein, a spokeswoman for
the university, told the Dailiy Planet in a phone interview last
Monday.
The school is
approaching the allegations from four directions, she said. These
include an investigation into whether the universityës student code of
conduct was violated; an investigation by the schoolës Workplace
Committee into alleged threats of violence; a student events process,
which is trying to establish clearer communication with students about
appropriate use of speech at events; and an investigation into whether
the universityës employee code of conduct was violated.
"Weëre like a city here," Epstein said. "Youëre looking at a lot of processes."
However, the
results of the investigations into both Hunnicutt and Goddard will not
be made public, she noted, due to state and federal guidelines that
protect the privacy of students and university employees.
Stephen Buxley,
the associate vice chancellor for campus operations, concurred,
quipping, "Itës absolutely staggering how much I cannot tell you" in a
phone interview Monday afternoon.
"We are
conducting some investigations into exactly what has transpired,"
Buxley said. However, he noted, due to the State Personnel Act, he
cannot disclose any information on the state of the investigation or
its final outcome.
Nonetheless, he
said, "The university tends to react to this kind of thing pretty
quickly. I donët expect it to take very long to conclude" the
investigation.
The wall first sparked a conflict Oct. 25, when a group of students asked if they could paint pro-American messages on it.
When their
request was denied by the SUL students, they then proceded to spray
paint pro-war and pro-Bush statements on the grass, prompting the SUL
to complain to the campus police.
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