Brooklyn College Pushes Back On Story About Police In Bathrooms

FLATBUSH, BROOKLYN — Brooklyn College students and faculty are pushing back on a story in the New York Post that said the school doesn't want police using its public bathrooms.

Officers are asked to use facilities at the ends of campus, "rather than walking across either quad to use the bathroom," Director of Public Safety Donald Wenz said, according to a school paper, The Excelsior. The paper also quotes an anonymous student who said he was going to start a petition to have cops removed from campus entirely.

But the Post blew The Excelsior's story out of proportion, according to the school's president, Michelle J. Anderson.

"Brooklyn College does, in fact, welcome police to use its campus bathrooms. No policy has changed," Anderson said in a statement. "We have always allowed public servants to use our facilities under a neutral policy that applies to police, sanitation workers, traffic enforcement agents, and others who work in the field. Everyone needs to use the bathroom at one time or another."

The statement also said that she met with NYPD leadership to reiterate that they are welcome to use on-campus bathrooms.

An anonymous student was quoted in The Excelsior saying, "I disagree with them being on campus. Especially allowing them to use the building where student groups are held."

That consternation apparently stems from a 2015 incident, when officers went undercover in the school's Muslim community to search for terrorists.

A student who wrote the original story told another student newspaper on campus that his article was taken out of context.

"The Excelsior reported a simple story: cops are allowed to use the bathrooms on campus. Nowhere did we write 'BC students hate cops and are triggered by the NYPD,'" Zainab Iqbal told The Kingsman. "The NY Post did that. They made that claim by ‘interviewing’ two students on campus and ‘investigating’ one broken bathroom. They failed to recognize that almost every other bathroom is ‘broken’ one way or another. They had a misleading story… and that’s unfair."

NYPD Commissioner James O'Neil said it was "time for everyone to get together" when asked about the incident on Monday.

"I mean if you just take a look at what is going around the city – now’s the time for people to get to know their police officers, not to push them away," he told reporters at a press conference over Thanksgiving Day safety.

"God forbid anything does happen, in Brooklyn College we want to make sure our cops, not only from the 70 but from whatever other divisions or bureaus might respond to that — we want them to know they lay out of Brooklyn College so now is the time to get to know police officers, not to push them away."

The NYPD's police union took things a step further in a tweet that included a link to the Post story and said, "Maybe it's time people get what they ask for."