University of Maryland Police arrested a man on Wednesday after a report that female students were being harassed, the department wrote in a tweet.
The man was preaching from the Bible to a group of women wearing hijabs, and when they asked him to stop, he refused and continued to follow them, police spokeswoman Sgt. Rosanne Hoaas said.
Police arrived at the scene at about 2:25 p.m. and were able to find the man, who was unwilling to cooperate, Hoaas said.
“He did not want to listen to our officers, as in we were trying to get him to talk to our officers,” she said. “He didn’t want to do that, he didn’t want to listen to any of their requests, so then our officers too him into custody.”
After an allegation of officers tackling the man — who was said to be a black student — in front of Stamp arose on Twitter, the department replied, saying they were responding to a report of harassment.
Took all of about 2 hours from #momentofreflection for @UMPD to tackle a black student in front of Stamp #FearTheTurtle
— Alexander Houck (@AHouckamongus) August 30, 2017
“He wasn’t tackled by our officers,” Hoaas said. “He was arrested by us and later released, without charges at the moment.”
Alexander Houck, the Shuttle-UM bus driver who first tweeted about the incident, declined to comment.
CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, a previous version of this story incorrectly referred to this university’s bus service as UM-Shuttle. The correct name is Shuttle-UM, while UM-Shuttle is the bus service at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. This story has been updated.
