Delaware State's Jenkins Stresses Representation After Intimidating Search in Georgia

Tuesday May 10th, 2022 12:00pm

Matt Kinnear

Delaware State University president Tony Allen did not mince words in a statement to the student body Monday: “We do not intend to let this or any other incident like it pass idly by. We are prepared to go wherever the evidence leads us. We have video. We have allies. Perhaps more significantly, we have the courage of our convictions.”

The Delaware State women’s lacrosse team was traveling along I-95 Georgia on April 20 when the team bus was stopped by law enforcement. Coach Pamella Jenkins said the officers stopped the bus because it was riding in the left lane, but videos and quotes first revealed in a May 4 article in The Hornet Newspaper by mass communications major and lacrosse player Sydney Anderson show an intimidating search and hunt of the belongings of the mostly Black HBCU lacrosse team for drugs by police and drug-sniffing dogs.

As of Tuesday morning, the video included in the article has more than 13,000 views.



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Jenkins said the officer asked the bus driver to come off the bus and, within five minutes, drug-sniffing dogs were going through their luggage. Police officers came on the bus and said they were searching for marijuana. ... It should not be lost on any of us how thin any day’s line is between customary and extraordinary, between humdrum and exceptional, between safe and victimized. That is true for us all but particularly so for communities of color and the institutions who serve them. The resultant feelings of disempowerment are always the aggressors’ object,” Allen said in his statement.

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