Sierra Morrison remembers the first time she stepped onto the campus of Clark Atlanta University. She traveled from her Minneapolis high school to tour colleges, and something just felt right about the Georgia HBCU.
“Just being in Atlanta and seeing so many people that look like me, in so many different spaces, spaces that I wanted to be in,” Morrison recalled. “The culture was what drove me here. I knew it was the one when I first toured it.”
Clark Atlanta, she said, was her dream school, where she would receive her undergraduate degree in criminal justice in 2021 and then go on to pursue her master’s in social work.
But on Feb. 6, that dream turned into a nightmare when Morrison was arrested by a campus police officer in her classroom and marched across campus in handcuffs.
Her offense: forgetting her college ID at home.
And to make things even worse, footage of Morrison’s arrest would soon go viral on social media.
The arrest
Upon arriving on campus for her 9 a.m. class last week, the 26-year-old Morrison realized she had forgotten her student identification card.
“Upon entering the threshold of campus, I was asked for my student paw card,” she said. “I let the [campus safety officer] know that I didn’t have my ID and reassured her that I was a student. I suggested that she walk me to class so my teacher could vouch that I was a student. She didn’t do that. I proceeded to walk to class.”
About 20 minutes into her Clinical Leadership and Development class, Morrison noticed two police officers roaming the hallway. When they stopped at her classroom door, she said one of the officers came in and stood at the back of the room. She said he pointed at her, “You in the green jacket, come with me.”
When Morrison stepped into the hallway, she said, one of the officers told her to show him her ID — “otherwise, I’m putting you under arrest.”
“I’m belligerently crying. I’m distraught, I’m confused, I’m embarrassed.”
Sierra Morrison
Her explanation that she didn’t have her ID but was a current student didn’t seem to matter, she said.
“He put me in handcuffs after I inquired,” she said. “Once he put me in handcuffs, he stated I was under arrest.”
In a video of the incident, Morrison’s professor, Nathaniel Currie, can be seen coming to her aid and assuring the officer that she is in his class and offering to produce documentation.
A student can be heard asking for the officer’s name. Holding Morrison in cuffs, he identifies himself as Corporal Israel.
“I’m belligerently crying. I’m distraught, I’m confused, I’m embarrassed,” Morrison said. “My class is watching me. I’m humiliated. I am being treated like a criminal when I’m a student. I’m being pulled out of a class that I’m in legally, and it turned into a crime.”
The university to date has not released the arresting officer’s name. Representatives of the university and the campus police department could not be reached for comment prior to publication.
Morrison said she didn’t want the situation to escalate like one of the deadly police encounters from her hometown, so she complied.
“I’m from Minnesota, so I’ve seen the way that unchecked authority causes escalations of situations that were never even meant to escalate,” she said. “They walked me down three flights of stairs and then across the campus in handcuffs.”
One of Morrison’s friends walked with her, trying to reassure her that everything would be OK and that she should just do what they told her.
Once at the office of Campus Public Safety, one of Morrison’s cuffs slipped off. That’s when she told Capital B Atlanta that Israel shoved her against the wall and tightened the cuffs, bruising her wrists.
Left restrained in a room for an hour, she continued to cry. She asked for a phone call because she was scheduled to pick up her 2-year-old daughter after class.
Once the handcuffs were removed by another officer, her professor was allowed to see her.
“[Currie] came to my aid. He said he’s not sure what’s going on, but at the moment, ‘Let’s just get through this situation and we’ll figure it out.’”
After two more hours, she said, the dean of her department came down and told her in order for the police to let her go, she would have to attend a meeting the next day with Clark Atlanta Police Chief Debra Williams. Morrison agreed, determined to leave as soon as possible to get to her daughter and work.
“I disassociated. I was in the moment, physically but mentally. I mean, I had no fight in me. I pleaded, I begged, I cried, I used my words. I didn’t expect it to happen to me. And I’m not speaking out of anger, but solely out of disappointment that a university that’s committed to uplifting and educating students could allow such a breakdown in authority and judgment to occur. The situation could have been resolved in so many other ways.”
The video goes viral
By the time Morrison got to her job later that day at a residential facility for exploited children, the video of her arrest was beginning to circulate on social media. Morrison’s friend LaTajah Lassus had posted a video of the incident and included the following caption on her Instagram account @thebrigheststarfire:
“On Black History Month at my Historically Black College… a fellow classmate was arrested in class for not having her #cau ID (her paw card) GO PANTHERS!
“let’s be serious, given the societal & cultural landscape this is absolutely UNACCEPTABLE! & i do not feel safe on my campus. i do not trust that CAU PD has student’s best interest at heart.”
“I wasn’t aware the video was posted until people were coming up to me at work,” Morrison said. “People are texting me, letting me know they saw the video.”
The tears fell again.
“It’s a moment that was already embarrassing enough to experience amongst a classroom full of people, now extremely humiliating, because now it’s public. So every like, every comment, every share, I have to relive the moment.”
“After talking to my parents, they encouraged me to not run from the situation.”
Sierra Morrison
The next morning, Morrison said, she didn’t feel ready to talk with the police chief, so she pushed back the meeting. Hesitant but determined, she decided to return to class.
“After talking to my parents, they encouraged me to not run from the situation,” Morrison said.
But on her way to class, she said, she saw the officer who had handcuffed her the previous day.
“This is the exact reason I didn’t want to go,” she recalled. “Not only am I now seeing the same person that put me in the situation, not even 24 hours before, but now I’m going back to the same class.”
Trembling in her seat, her peers kept checking on her, along with Currie.
“I kind of just pushed through that class.”
“Nobody attempted to hear my side of the story”
On Feb. 7, Clark Atlanta President George T. French Jr. released a letter to the student community addressing the controversy.
“We acknowledge that the student’s refusal to present ID interfered with campus access protocols and contributed to the escalation of the situation,” he wrote. “The University expects all members of our community to comply with Clark Atlanta University Public Safety procedures.”
French shared his concern over the responding officer’s actions, where he “entered an active instructional space and attempted to make an arrest. This action disrupted the academic environment and, in our assessment, exceeded the appropriate boundaries for law enforcement engagement in instructional settings.”
For Morrison, the president’s statement wasn’t enough.
“I was very disappointed because it simply was not true,” she said. “Nobody attempted to hear my side of the story or attempted to reach out to get some clarification. So it seems they spoke to Corporal Israel and went with his story. Now I am made out to be the problem rather than just a student that was attending class.”
In a letter posted Feb. 9 on Facebook, Police Chief Williams announced that the officer had been placed on leave. For Morrison, it’s a start.
The university has not announced whether the office is on paid leave. But if he is, Morrison said that would be unfair. “So, you get to vacation while I am seeking therapy.” she said. “You’re on the beach; I’m in a counselor’s office.”
Comments by students on social media posts about the incident have called for Israel’s termination. Morrison said she agrees. “If there’s no accountability, what will that say for the safety of our students?” she said. “How can our students feel safe?”
During a short meeting Tuesday with Andre McKinney, Clark Atlanta’s associate dean of students, Morrison said she was told she would not receive a citation or violation from the school and she would remain in good standing even though she had violated a code of conduct rule.
“It is completely disregarding the fact that it escalated,” she said. “He just reassured me that I can remain at Clark Atlanta University.”
Morrison, who is in her last semester of her master’s program, said she’s spoken to an attorney about her options and has also thought about leaving the place that was once her dream school. But then she remembers some of the reasons she came to Atlanta eight years ago, her career aspirations to create therapeutic spaces to help children heal from trauma, and the home she bought five months ago for herself and her daughter Journi.
“We built a life here. I will not allow it to be thrown away,” she said. “I just worked so hard to build a good foundation, and I refuse to allow it to be broken.”
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