Student Backlash After Montclair State University Campus Police Draw Guns on Fighting Students

A New Jersey university is defending the actions of its campus police after they were filmed drawing their guns on students while breaking up a fight on the first day of class -- the same day former vice president Joe Biden was visiting.

Video of the incident at Montclair State University is going viral -- with students accusing the officers of police brutality and racial profiling -- after student Jaffer Mehdi filmed it on his phone and posted it to Twitter.

Mehdi said he saw two men fighting on campus on Wednesday afternoon. When an officer arrived, the men stopped fighting, and he started filming. "One of the men put his hands up and the officer drew his gun... that’s where the video starts," he says.

In the clip, one man is standing with his hands on his head and two officers have pulled their guns. A man in a red t-shirt pulls his arm away from an officer, and is then pushed to the ground. At least one other officer appears to have drawn his gun and two men seated in a car are then pulled from the vehicle and handcuffed on the ground at gunpoint. Mehdi said all of the men in the video are Montclair students, apart from the man in the red t-shirt.

The incident happened on the same day Joe Biden was on campus campaigning for congressional candidate Mikie Sherrill.

As of Friday morning the video has been viewed almost 350,000 times and retweeted more than 5,000 times, many from Montclair students expressing their disappointment, but some were others saying it was the man in the red t-shirt's own fault for resisting.

But the university hit back after the video went viral, saying its officers took "every precaution necessary" to make sure people on campus were kept safe. "While the optics in the video may be unclear, the reality is that the officers acted according to New Jersey Attorney General guidelines and the process worked," it said.

The university said the men involved in the fight initially refused to lie on the ground when asked. It said the officer then asked a man in the car to show his hands and saw more movement in the car but couldn't see through the tinted windows. "Because of the uncertainty of the situation, the officer drew his weapon to secure the scene until back-up arrived."

The university said one man was charged with simple assault, one was charged with simple assault, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, and two other men were released at the scene. 

But Mehdi said students were still angry and looking for answers.

"I believe the police response was excessive," Mehdi says. "In the video it shows that four officers drew their guns at unarmed men, dragged one man from the car and pointed guns at the men as they were being hand cuffed and compliant."

He added that organizations on campus at Montclair State University were banding together to tackle the problem of racial profiling and wrongful arrest.