Christin Evans, an 18-year-old freshman at Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas, woke up to campus police in her dorm room with a gun and taser drawn after her white roomates allegedly filed bogus police report.
The incident took place on September 14 at 3 a.m.
Christin’s lawyer Randall Kallinen stated, “A story was made up about her that she was threatening to stab people in the room with scissors.”
“It was extremely traumatizing for her and has led to a lot of problems psychologically and she is suffering from depression. Whenever she hears any footsteps outside of her dorm room, she’s always terrified.”
The lawyer said that individuals convinced the resident assistant (RA) to call the police by saying Evans was manic and going to stab people with scissors.
According to SFA Chief of Police John Fields, eleven women, including her roommates, were involved in the incident. Of the 11 women, six were White, four were Black, and one was Hispanic.
Evans told CNN that she had spent the day before the incident, “talking like normal friends” to her roommates.
She also told CNN that she believes her race affected the school’s response to the incident, Evans is African American.
“I definitely think if I was a White student, they would have been a lot faster with the punishments. Things would have been handled a lot faster,” Evans added.
According to authorities none of the women responsible for the incident have been identified, and CNN has not been able to contact them for comment.
I’m not sure how this is possible with 2 of the eleven women responsible being her roommates.
“The evidence doesn’t lead to any racism,” Fields stated. “It’s more students doing stuff they shouldn’t be doing.”
University officials say there investigation is on-going, and no criminal charges have been filed yet.
“Filing a false report violates the SFA Code of Conduct, and potentially violates the law as well,” SFA President Scott Gordon stated to CNN. “The investigation and judicial processes take time. I want to urge everyone to withhold judgment until the conclusion of our investigation and process.”
“My heart goes out to the young lady who was an innocent victim in this matter. We will do all we can to support her and her family through this heinous ordeal. We will not have this at SFA!”
The students who are found responsible “will be dealt with appropriately,” Gordon said.
Evans was recruited by the university for the cheer squad in December 2019, and she was excited to make new friends and cheer. Instead, one month since the start of her first semester, she is thinking about transferring.
“It has really, really changed the way that I do things. I can’t sleep, my eating habits are totally different. I’m really paranoid, skittish,” Evans told CNN. “Because of their actions, my life is now different.”
“I really think that it will take a lot of time to recover and build myself back up to where I was,” Evans added.
Kallinen says more than two weeks after the incident the family is still demanding that everyone involved be held accountable.
“These are adult college students who are older than her, who know about Breonna Taylor, who was sleeping when police entered and shot and killed her,” he said. “This could have ended just as badly. We’re lucky she wasn’t shot.”
When police arrived, Fields said they knocked four times and was let in by one of Evans’ suit mates.
Only one officer had a weapon, with a flashlight attached that he used to see in the dark, and the weapon wasn’t pointed at Evans, Fields said.
Another officer had a taser ready, while the third officer didn’t have a taser or weapon out, Fields stated.
When the police found Evans in bed, the threat was deescalated.
“At no time did we go inside the room like the wild, Wild West, like it’s been presented in the media,” Fields said. “The officers were always professional, and they had a conversation with her.”
Evans has moved to another dorm, but she is still enrolled at the university.
“I sent my child there, a normal happy teenager, and these girls have changed her life and who she is for now,” Christin Evans mother, LaShondra Evans, told CNN.
“They still kept living their lives. They stayed in the same room, nothing was affected, so far they faced no consequences, so to them this is something you can get away with while my child’s life has been uprooted.”
The Evans’ family continues to put pressure on the university to discipline the students involved.
Christin Evans needs to transfer from that university ASAP, in my opinion.
How do you think Christin and her family should handle this situation?
Source: CNN
