On Saturday evening, New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow tweeted that his son, a Yale junior, was accosted by a campus police officer and held at gunpoint.
According to Blow, his son was leaving the campus library when he was approached by an officer who pulled a gun on him and forced him to lay on his stomach. It wasn’t until the officer asked what school he went to, and Blow’s son replied, “Yale,” that the student was allowed to stand up. The officer then demanded that he show an ID. A female officer eventually approached the scene, which is when the officers explained to Blow’s son that they were looking for a burglary suspect and he fit the description.
In a Monday column for the Times, Blow writes, “Why was a gun drawn? Why was he not immediately told why he was being detained? Why not ask for ID first?”
In the piece, Blow reveals that he had talked to his son previously about how to act if ever confronted by the police, but that he was still angered by the confrontation. “There is no amount of respectability that can bend a gun’s barrel,” Blow wrote, asking what would have happened had his son panicked under the pressure. “All of our boys are bound together.”
The university issued an official apology and vowed to conduct an internal investigation.