An investigation into how George Washington University began arming its police force in 2023 determined the school chose to not seek community input before implementing the plan because it feared public opposition would quash plans to provide its officers with guns.
In a four-page summary of findings and recommendations, the report was critical of the university’s decision to avoid fully engaging with the school community before implementing the plan, in part because school officials anticipated pushback to the idea of arming officers.
“University leadership believed that a fulsome discussion of potential arming with various stakeholders would be universally negative and derail any arming of GWPD,” according to the report.
A timeline for engaging with the university community was proposed in 2021 when the notion of arming officers was first raised by James Tate, who then served as the police chief for the George Washington Police Department.
“However, very few steps toward such engagement were taken,” according to the report.
The university’s board of trustees voted to approve a plan to arm police supervisors in February 2023. The vote came shortly after a mass shooting at Michigan State University’s campus, in which the availability of armed campus police was credited with saving lives.
“The proposal to arm supervisors only as opposed to all sworn GWPD officers was Chief Tate’s alone and did not stem from a reasoned internal discussion of the pros and cons of such an approach,” the report states. “By his account, Chief Tate’s proposal was borne of his belief that the community would not be comfortable with a fully armed police department.”
In addition to not fully discussing the notion of arming the department with the university community, the report pointed to errors in its implementation of the new policy.
Shortly after Tate and his top deputy, Capt. Gabe Mullinax, were armed in August 2023, “Captain Mullinax discovered that the guns assigned to him and Chief had not been registered as required by D.C. law,” the report said.
“While those two firearms were quickly registered as required, Chief Tate and Captain Mullinax had carried them for approximately 30 days prior to that registration in violation of D.C. law.”
GW president apologizes, commits to future engagement
In a letter to the GW community on Tuesday, school president Ellen Granberg provided an update to the investigation and apologized.
“GW leadership must get better at meaningfully and adequately engaging broader parts of the community when considering major institutional decisions such as arming,” Granberg said. “The community, including the Board of Trustees, deserved better and for this, I am sorry.”
The investigation was commissioned by Granberg and led by Timothy Heaphy, a partner at the Willkie Farr & Gallagher law firm and the former general counsel for the University of Virginia. Heaphy was supported in his investigation by Timothy Longo, University of Virginia’s associate vice president for safety and security and chief of police.
“Following his work on the investigation, Chief Longo developed a series of recommendations for the future of GWPD, which will be a useful tool for its leadership, including our next chief,” Granberg said.
The report recommends the university consider arming all sworn officers, but only after fully engaging with stakeholders.
“Communication with the university community should never be discouraged or avoided, but rather formalized and embraced,” the report states. “GW has an opportunity to move forward with a renewed spirit of cooperation and transparency, not only on the issue of public safety, but in all that it does.”
Granberg agreed: “My fellow Revs, the failures around the GWPD arming program offer us an important learning opportunity, and we will be a better, stronger community as a result.”
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