Update from UCLA’s Public Safety Co-Chairs

Tyrone Howard and Rasha Gerges Shields sent the following message to the UCLA campus community.

Dear Bruin Community:

We are writing to provide an update on our work as co-chairs of UCLA’s effort to address public safety concerns on our campus.

As we reported to you in our last update on June 18, 2021, as part of our work as co-chairs, we held a series of community conversations, or listening sessions, earlier this year to hear directly from students, faculty and staff about their opinions and perspectives tied to reimagining policing and campus safety. We held separate sessions with UCPD to hear from officers and leadership about their opinions and perspectives relating to campus safety as well.

Again, we want to thank the more than 250 stakeholders who took the time to participate in these sessions, and to all of you who provided your comments in writing. We greatly appreciate all of the input and feedback we have received to date, which will certainly inform our report to the Chancellor.

In terms of timing, although we had hoped to release our report this fall, we are still awaiting the results of the independent, third-party review of the June 2020 Jackie Robinson Stadium incident. We understand that the independent review is near completion, but has not been finalized yet because of outstanding requests for information made to the Los Angeles Police Department. We believe this independent review is an important step in the university’s effort to address public safety through transparency, accountability and reconciliation. It needs to be done right, even if that means taking longer than initially anticipated. As independent advisors, we view the third-party review of the Jackie Robinson Stadium incident as an essential part of our report

In light of the unanticipated delay in completing our work, we would like to use the time to get additional input from the UCLA community. In January, we plan to hold town halls for students, staff and faculty (these may be virtual or in person, subject to relevant COVID-19 protocols). We would love the opportunity to meet more of you because we want to ensure that your varied perspectives and experiences are reflected in our report. We also continue to welcome written submissions through our feedback form or via email at UCLAPublicSafetyCoChairs@gmail.com.

We hope you enjoy the winter break and the holidays. We look forward to seeing you in the new year.

Sincerely,