The University of Vermont is investigating the actions of a campus police officer who handcuffed a female student at gunpoint Wednesday during a police search for a male suspect in an earlier armed robbery.

The suspect and the female student are black, but their physical similarities end there, said one person who knows the student. The suspect in the robbery at the Tupper Hall dormitory remained at large Friday evening.

The incident has led UVM to reassign the officer to desk duty and prompted President Daniel Fogel to send a memo to all students, faculty and staff on campus as talk of racial profiling and the appropriate use of force swirls around the school.

""While not prejudging the outcome of the investigation of police conduct," Fogel wrote in his campuswide e-mail, "we all understand that the detention of an innocent student raises serious questions about the campus climate for persons of color."

The incident prompted angry reactions from some at UVM, including Willi Coleman, director of the university's African-American, Latino, Asian and Native American Studies Program. She said the incident endangered students and raised questions of race relations at UVM, a school of 7,600 undergraduates.

"It´s such a breach of safety," Coleman said. "We do not go at students with guns pointed. We do not do that at UVM. It´s hard for me to believe that if we were looking for a white male student, we would approach a white female student with guns drawn."

Coleman, who knows the student police detained, said the young woman is far shorter than the 6-foot suspect for whom police were searching. Police, Coleman and UVM officials declined to identify the female student, citing her request for as much privacy as possible on a campus with only 54 black undergraduates. Police also declined to name the robbery victim except to say he is a 19-year-old man from New Jersey.

The robbery

The 19-year-old student was walking in a corridor in Tupper Hall, a residence hall on UVM´s East Campus, at about 3 p.m. Wednesday when a man approached him, drew a knife and demanded money, said Detective Tim Bilodeau of the UVM Police Department. The student complied, and the man left the building and headed toward Main Street, Bilodeau said.

Police are not sure whether the suspect is a student. The victim did not know the robber, Bilodeau said. The student described the robber as a black man in his early 20s, between 6 feet and 6 feet 2 inches tall, Bilodeau said.

A campus police officer responding to the robbery saw a person matching the description from a distance, said UVM spokesman Enrique Corredera. The officer radioed to a second campus officer who was closer to the person. Corredera declined to name the officers involved.

The second officer approached the person, drew his gun, ordered the person to the ground and handcuffed the individual, Corredera said. Then, police realized the person was a black woman instead of the black man the robbery victim had described.

"It was a relatively brief encounter," Corredera said. "As soon as the officers realized they had the wrong person, they immediately released that person."

Corredera estimated the young woman was in handcuffs no more than a few minutes.

UVM Police Chief Gary Margolis said he couldn´t comment on the incident and referred questions to Corredera.

Officers are allowed to display their weapons only under certain circumstances, according to the UVM Police Department´s Use of Force Policy. Those circumstances include cases where the use of deadly force is justified and "under circumstances where an officer reasonably believes that the potential for immediate use of the weapon is high and officer/public safety dictates that the weapon be unholstered and ready."

Fogel reacts

Fogel said both the robbery and the police reaction are of great concern to the university community.

Within a day of the incident, Fogel ordered one investigation into police conduct and another into the security of residence halls, met with the student whom police had detained, and held a two-hour meeting with a group of 30 students at the ALANA Student Center, according to Corredera and Fogel's e-mail.

"I want to reaffirm the long-standing commitment of the University of Vermont to providing a safe and secure learning environment for all members of the campus community," Fogel wrote. "In addition to reviewing both the detention of the student and the security of the residence halls, we will enlist the help of external experts to review and enhance all relevant police procedures and training programs, particularly focusing on those that address racial and ethnic issues and best practices for law enforcement in an academic community."

The university has "tried to find every possible way to apologize" to the student and offered her counseling services, Corredera said.

Fogel wants the investigation into the police conduct to be swift and thorough, probably taking several days, Corredera said.

A question of race

A number of UVM students said Friday that the detention of a fellow student troubles them because it seems race explains the situation. "The fact that they would just stop a random black person on the street is pretty scary," said Sharla Hamilton, an 18-year-old freshman from Chester, Conn.

Hamilton said she thinks police would have reacted differently and with more restraint had the suspect been white.

Shane Richard, a freshman criminal-justice major from Medfield, Mass., said the police officer could have been justified in drawing a gun in a similar situation, but the specific incident Wednesday went too far. &34;I thought they´d at least have the right sex," said Richard, 19.

Freshmen Jessica Pomerleau and Sara Mallette said they were upset to learn about the incident, which they believe had racial undertones. "Was it just the cops looking for a black person and the first black person they saw they just went crazy?" asked Pomerleau, who grew up in Burlington. "That poor girl. My God, how scared she must have been."

Pomerleau said she has been struck by how groups of black and white students often travel in distinct circles on campus. She had hoped to find a more mixed college community, she said.

Mallette, who is from Essex, said she discussed the robbery and police reaction Friday in her sociology class on race relations. She said the students reacted strongly about the seeming unfairness of the situation. "I just think it´s so wrong. They target black people still," Mallette said.

Coleman, the ALANA director, said the incident comes at a bad time, just days before potential students of color visit campus Monday.

Dorm safety

The robbery itself raised questions of how secure on-campus residence halls are. Access to most halls is controlled, and most doors require keys to open, Corredera and students said.

But students added that residents prop open many locked doors and let other people into the buildings.

Sophomores Alex Carlson and Laura Naughton said the incident reinforces their feeling that the UVM campus is becoming a less-safe place. Naughton´s car was broken into recently, she said, and both women said they´ve heard of many more car and dorm break-ins than last year. They have both started locking their rooms, something they didn't think about before.

As a stiff wind blew around Tupper Hall on Friday afternoon, brightly colored signs hung near several doors.

"Due to safety concerns," read the signs, "the front desk will NOT let people into the building."

Free Press Staff Writer Emily Stone contributed to this report.

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