Late last week, allegations surfaced about possible discrimination exhibited by the UCF Police Department.
A UCF professor, claimed she was called a "drug user," "crackhead" and "liar," based on her mixed-raced appearance and sexuality.
At this point, the allegations are still being investigated, which presents a difficult situation for anyone to make any assumptions.
The fact of the matter is that, regardless of what anyone thinks, this situation has not been resolved.
The necessity of massive movements, e-mails and gatherings seems premature without the completion of an official investigation.
Furthermore, Richard Beary, UCF PD's chief of police, personally requested assistance from Orlando Police in conducting the investigation.
This helps to assuage any claims that the investigation could possibly be slanted, as an outside organization is performing it.
The amount of support for Jennifer Lisa Vest is commendable, but could potentially become misplaced if the investigation presents different claims.
We understand that police discrimination is a real thing, as is sometimes the case with any position involving authority.
We also understand that this may very well have happened exactly as Vest says, but without an official source, where is the certainty?
In this day and age, everyone expects well-educated people to "look at both sides of the problem." Where is that in this instance? Why is it automatically assumed that university police wronged someone in some way?
According to the police report, Vest was not very compliant in her initial meeting with police. The officer explained why she was pulled over and noticed a pillbox.
Upon confirming that the pills were prescribed, the officer noticed her agitation.
When asked, she claimed that she was being harassed. From there, the miscommunications just continued.
As university students who study politics, law and history, we are taught to use only unquestionable resources in our research.
How is this any different from a research paper?
As students and members of the community, incidents such as these force us to conduct research about what happened. We scour news sources, official releases and listen to what our closest friends have to say on the matter.
The ultimate questions that we're asking at the Future is this: Is everyone quick to point blame to UCF police because they feel police frequently abuse authority? Or is it that people don't understand that these are merely allegations, not proof of any wrongdoing?
We can't write history papers without proper citations, mathematic reports without equations, or even articles without credible sources.
What gives UCF students the right to automatically assume that Vest was wronged in some way? Let's hold off on judgment until we have all of the facts.
is a member of the 
7 comments
To suggest that signing the petition or what any student said to the media or in the letters is libel or slander is just a scare tactic. I really suggest you look up the laws and case history on that. Have you actually read the petition?
If there are students who have misguidedly blamed the entire police department or called for anything drastic, I think it is unfair to connect those students to the ones who have been primarily organizing the "massive movements, e-mails and gatherings".
I also think that it is out of the question to assume that nothing happened and let this incident pass without drawing student and media attention to the issue and therefore I strongly support the initiative that students have taken to show public solidarity with Dr. Vest.
I recognize this as an opinion piece so I wont point out the bias, but I will say that the sources you are discussing here, perhaps should also be cited.