Ohio cops are searching for men who decided to be racist, and to be threatening against those on a college campus, black women in particular. All right, let's put it up for a mass, I'm gonna give you the background. [00:00:16] According to news, a news release from the Ohio University Police Department, black female students were reportedly called racial slurs. They were threatened by a group of men on campus this past weekend. [00:00:32] So we have these steals to show three of the four male suspects, the incident happened near East Union street and University Terrace just after 1:40 a.m, on a Sunday, December 10. The three women came across two groups of men who they heard arguing and [00:00:51] using the N-word. This prompted one of the women to call them out for using the derogatory term. While one group decided to leave the area, the other allegedly started to follow the women and yelled racial epithets at them. [00:01:07] The group consisted of three white males and one who apparently was either black or biracial, according to the report. Before fleeing the scene, two of the men threatened the women with guns [00:01:23] with laser sights on them, the news release said. Campus police attempted to track them down but could not find them and the incident is under investigation. It's unclear if they are students at the school, Campus police are seeking more information about the men involved. [00:01:41] Students at the predominantly white institution located in Athens, about 74 miles from Columbus, expressed their disappointment and shock that an incident of that nature even occurred in the first place. Quote, stuff like that doesn't happen here very often, [00:02:00] one student, Brice, told WCMH-TV. Interim vice president for university and inclusion Russell Morrow, on the left, and dean of students Kathy Fall, on the right, release a statement condemning the actions. [00:02:16] And it reads, we can be immediately and unequivocally clear on this, the bigotry and threats of violence displayed by the perpetrators in this incident are abhorrent and unacceptable. Certainly we take threats of physical harm against any student seriously, and [00:02:32] we work every day to ensure the safety of our campus community. We are thankful that no physical harm resulted from this incident. Our university's president is Dr. Laurie Stuart Gonzalez, she's a fine president, she does a great job at Ohio University, good leadership team there. [00:02:50] All right, so obviously this is a narrative that the university doesn't want to have, okay. An investigation should be one, thorough, two, transparent, and three, aggressive. These are college students, right, [00:03:06] we don't know if the perpetrators were actually college students, too. It could be, they could be, but you have to make significant example out of moments like this, it makes everyone uncomfortable. It creates an atmosphere adverse to learning if people [00:03:24] are anxious, if they are afraid, they can't learn. Can't learn in that environment, if you're upset and offended and depressed because of the emotional dynamics connected to something like this, that's not a learning environment. You cease to be a learning environment when things like this can permeate on your [00:03:41] campus unchecked. That's not what's happening at Ohio University, now, it could happen if it goes unchecked, but it definitely has happened at some other colleges we've covered here. We wanna make sure that this is followed up and reported on while it develops, all right, professor, you're a professor, I'm a professor. [00:03:59] We know learning environments are important to the learning experience. >> Speaker 2: [COUGH] I mean, it's a terrifying time on college campuses, right now. When I see a story like this, I actually think about the Michigan state mass [00:04:14] shooting that happened earlier, because somebody who wasn't affiliated with the college came on campus with a gun and started firing. The beauty of college campuses is they feel like safety bubbles, a lot of times they're separate from a society, and I just worry with stuff like this. [00:04:34] I just think it's very important if these guys were or were not students, but the flip side, of course, is the NRA has had its way with a lot of college campuses. So now you can have campus carry, so there are guns on campus also. And so, even without all the stuff that's been happening over the last couple [00:04:49] of months about college campuses, it's just a very volatile time. And I think it's just important for us all to think about obviously the content of this, which is so important. But also what are decisions we're gonna make about the physical space of campuses, [00:05:04] considering that there are people on the outside with guns, people on the inside with guns. And I don't know, I fear that a campus will not look like a campus ten years from now because of things like this. >> Speaker 1: Yes, that's a good point, all right, we will follow up on the story.