Police storm Black student’s dorm room with guns after roommates allegedly file false report
Christin Evans, a student at SFU, was accused of wanting to stab her three white roommates at her Texas dorm but police cleared her of any wrongdoing
A Black student in Texas had guns pointed at her after cops barged into her room in response to her roommates allegedly filing a false report.
Christin Evans, 17, is still shaken up after campus police barreled into her room at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas with their guns drawn on Sept. 14. The freshman, who was recruited for the SFA cheer squad, recounted the incident at a press conference on Monday, the Washington Post reported.
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Randall Kallinen, a civil rights attorney representing Evans, said that a resident advisor called campus police to accuse Evans of attempting to harm others. Her three white roommates told the advisor that Evans wanted to stab them with scissors.
Campus police arrived and barged into the dormitory at 3 a.m. and held her at gunpoint with lights flashing in her eyes. She was cleared of any wrongdoing after police reviewed the footage, but she is still unsettled over what happened.
Evans has since moved into a new dorm and will continue to take her classes online due to COVID-19.
“I feel shaken. I don’t even know how to think. I can’t sleep at night because of this. It has made me really paranoid,” Evans said at the presser.
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Her parents wanted the students who filed the report to be held accountable for what the family believes to be a racially motivated set up and instance of “swatting,” which is a prank meant to create a confrontation with law enforcement.
“Yes, we’re upset and we want something to be done about it,” her father, Chris Evans, said. “When I sent my daughter off to school, my worse-case scenario was that she should call needing money or an issue with her grades.”
LaShondra Evans said that she worried that her daughter could’ve died due to the actions of the SFA campus police.
“Kids sleep with their phones in their bed. What if they [saw] her phone flash, or the back of her phone is shiny … and they had reported she had a knife. They could’ve shot her,” the mother said.
Kallinen echoed the sentiment and declared that Evans could have been another Breonna Taylor. The 26-year-old EMT died in March after Louisville police officers executed a botched no-knock raid and fatally shot her.
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“Their daughter was sleeping and awoken at 3 o’clock in the morning by local police with flashlights shining out and their guns drawn. This could have been a Breonna Taylor circumstance,” Kallinen said.
SFA President Scott Gordon told the Post that the university was investigating the matter and that the “judicial processes” would take its time.
“Each perpetrator will be dealt with appropriately,” Gordon added. “My heart goes out to the young lady who was an innocent victim in this matter. We will do all we can to support her and her family through this heinous ordeal.”
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