Penn State University Police and Public Safety
issued a statement Wednesday providing a brief update on its investigation into alleged hate speech directed at the university’s Black Caucus last week.
Penn State said it’s consulted with a combination of internal and external resources in the investigation, including the Office of Information Security, FBI, Centre County District Attorney’s Office.
According to the department’s statement, charges of ethnic intimidation, harassment, disorderly conduct, and unlawful use of a computer could be filed against the 51 unauthorized users who allegedly crashed the Black Caucus’s Involvement Fair Zoom room on Wednesday, January 27. Those individuals reportedly directed “racist and homophobic slurs” at three Black Caucus executives and sent anti-Semitic and white supremacist language and symbols in that chat.
The parents of Osaze Osagie alleged in a new court filing on Monday that the former State College police officer who fatally shot their son in 2019 was “mentally unstable and violent,” and was “unfit for duty” when he was assigned to go to Osagie’s apartment the day of the shooting.
An amended complaint filed in
the family’s federal lawsuit against the borough and four officers also claims that a now-retired police captain had received information about former officer M. Jordan Pieniazek’s alleged “excessive drinking and domestic abuse” and did not take steps to ensure Pieniazek was fit for duty in the days leading up to the shooting.
Osaze Osagie was killed in March of 2019, after State College police responded to a call for help from Osagie's parents over their son's mental health issues. T