State College Borough Council will hold a work session to receive public comments and discuss next steps for the community following the conclusion of the investigation into the fatal shooting of Osaze Osagie by borough police.
The work session will be held at 5:15 p.m. on Monday in the Municipal Building. At an April 15 council meeting, borough leaders said a task force was being formed to closely examine the response to individuals with mental illness and the relationship between borough police and communities of color.
Monday’s work session ‘is to receive comments from the community in response to the District Attorney’s Report and to provide the community with an update on Council’s role in the next steps,’ according to the public notice.
On Wednesday, District Attorney Bernie Cantorna announced no charges would filed against the officers involved after a state police investigation concluded the use of force was justified. Officers went to Osagie’s apartment on March 20 to serve a 302 mental health warrant. When Osagie brandished a knife and rushed at officers in a narrow hallway, one officer deployed a taser that was ineffective before another fired three shots that struck and killed Osagie, a 29-year-old black man who struggled with mental illness for years.
Cantorna said the officers followed their training in ‘a life-or-death situation’ that unfolded over less than a minute in a narrow hallway outside Osagie’s apartment door. Sgt. William Slaton, of the state police Heritage Affairs Section, said the investigation determined the shooting was not racially motivated.
Slaton and Cantorna both said at a press conference on Wednesday that the state’s mental health system failed Osagie by preventing intervention before he became a danger to himself and others.
The roles of race and mental health in the shooting have been central to numerous community meeting and public comment periods at council meetings since Osagie’s death. Council has discussed community concerns at each of its meetings, and demonstrators staged a ‘lie-in’ protest during the April 8 work session. After Cantorna’s announcement on Wednesday, protestors took to the street and at a rally later that night speakers demanded justice for Osagie while discussing concerns about how police interact with people of color and those in mental health crises.
Osagie’s mother, Iyun, said the shooting was a wrongful death and called Cantorna’s decision ‘unjust.’
She added that her husband’s call to police to help find their son — because they were concerned about his erratic behavior and text messages he sent threatening to harm himself and others — was not a ‘not a request for him to be put in an early grave.’
Cantorna recommend creation of a task force to address how to best process mental health warrants at the state and local levels and whether changes should be made to Pennsylvania’s mental health commitment laws. He noted that Osagie had withdrawn from his treatment and stopped taking medication in the months before his death, but that under Pennsylvania law there was no mechanism to take action before Osagie had deteriorated to the point that he posed an imminent risk to himself and others.
Centre County has also seen a marked increase in 302 warrants, primarily served by law enforcement, over the past three years. In 2017, 57 were served, but that jumped to 304 in 2018. Cantorna said the current system is putting police and those in need of help at risk.
‘We owe it to [the Osagie family and the officers] and the community to look at this seriously and soberly and ask the question, ‘What should we be doing?” he said.
Cantorna said ‘the borough has it right’ in forming the new working group to address race- and mental health-related issues.
That new group, Council President Evan Myers said in April, will focus on ‘mental health services and systems, including police response.’ It also will build on the Task Force on Policing and Communities of Color, which brought together more than 30 representatives of the State College and Penn State community and issued a 2016 report and recommendations on the relationship between local law enforcement and underrepresented racial and ethnic groups.
The task force also will provide recommendations on the feasibility of an office of inclusion and equity within the borough.
“We will continue to collaborate with a wide variety of diverse, local partners to address community concerns as we seek strategies and programs designed to enhance the professional services provided by the women and men of the SCPD,’ Borough Manager Tom Fountaine said on Wednesday. ‘We will also work closely with the task force being formed to identify ways of improving the response to mental health needs in Centre County as well as ways to enhance the relationships and increase trust between police and communities of color.’
Penn State officials said in an unattributed statement that the university will appoint members to the task force.
‘University officials know that members of our community have been profoundly impacted by this heartbreaking matter, which has heightened concerns among some for safety,’ the statement said. ‘It is for that reason that Penn State will appoint representatives to participate in the working group being created by the Borough of State College to examine and address issues of race and mental health in policing. The university will be a key partner in helping to shape the efforts of this group. We welcome these and other actions of the borough and plan to build upon progress of earlier efforts.’
Other Business
The 5:15 p.m. work session will be the second time borough council convenes on Monday. A previously scheduled special meeting and work session has been moved to 11:30 a.m.
The special meeting is to consider a vote on State College Area School District’s request for a zoning text amendment that would allow 70-foot light standards at the high school’s South Track facility. The current zoning where the field is located only allows for 25-foot standards, which district planners said are insufficient for sports lighting.
Council was originally scheduled to vote on the request at its last meeting, but voted 5-2 to delay the decision after extensive comments from community members in favor and in opposition to the increase, as well as questions and comments from council members. According to the school district, the 70-foot lights can be better focused on the field of play and luminance will not trespass off school property, while lower lights would bleed into the surrounding neighborhood.
A lighted south track field would give the marching band a better location to practice. Otherwise band members will continue to be required to take instruments and equipment across Westerly Parkway and practice in the north parking lot. The lights also will give sports teams better flexibility for night competition and practices, and will provide a place for the five home football games this fall while Memorial Field undergoes renovations.
Those who opposed said they are worried about increased lighting, noise and traffic that would come with additional events at the track. If the zoning amendment is approved, it will trigger the creation of an operation agreement between council and the school board to govern how often and how late the lights can be used. Superintendent Bob O’Donnell said current discussions have the prevailing end time for events as 9 p.m. and shut off at 9:30 p.m.
During the work session following the special meeting, council will discuss a resolution introduced this week by Councilman Jesse Barlow that would commit the borough to developing a strategy to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions and 100 renewable energy no later than 2050.
Council also will discuss a petition submitted last fall to ban single-use plastic bags, as well as other approaches for reducing or eliminating plastic bag use, and will receive a report on the borough’s Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) permit and stormwater management program.
