ANNAPOLIS, Md. — The Baltimore City Delegation voted 9-4 in support of Johns Hopkins having its own police force.
Hopkins recently received a more than $1 billion donation towards the proposed police department. BUt some JHU students are not happy about the school having their own private police.
"Now that anyone can afford a private police force, it's only a matter of time before public safety becomes a matter of who can afford it, and we as residents are currently dealing with a lot of troubles with the current Baltimore City police," said a JHU student.
Congressman Elijah Cummings has so much interest in this he showed up to the meeting in Annapolis on his own accord.
"I do not want to betray the constituency that live around the Hopkins campuses nor do I want to betray the students and there is another group, the employees, they all want to be safe," said Cummings.
Moments after Cummings spoke to those in attendance, a handful of students began chanting “No justice, no peace, no private police” for about three minutes. Then state house security stepped in.
"They started pushing one of our people and then the group was led outdoors to the right," said a protester.
Chris Bilal lives in the Washington Hill community next to Hopkins and he isn’t happy about a private police force where he lives.
"We're actually thinking about community safety initiatives and we want more community safety and more community driven initiatives like Safe Streets, ROCA, mediation, and de-escalation, and decriminalization for communities in Baltimore City," said Bilal.
Some house members tried to amend the bill, but were unsuccessful. The bill will now go before a committee and if it is voted out of the committee, delegates will vote on the bill on the floor.
