MOBILE, Ala. – Dozens of students gathered at the site of a deadly campus shooting on Wednesday to protest the killing of a naked, unarmed student by a University of South Alabama police officer.
A smaller group rallied to support the embattled police department and officer Trevis Austin, 27, who fatally shot 18-year-old Gil Collar early Saturday.
Investigators have said Collar took the hallucinogenic drug LSD at a Mobile music festival before returning to campus and having a bizarre drug-induced meltdown and pounding on the police station’s glass door. Austin came out of the station with his weapon drawn and shot and killed Collar after the one-time high school wrestler continued to advance and refused to follow police commands, authorities have said.
The protesters said they want campus police to carry Tasers and believe the officer should have subdued Collar without killing him.
“The kid was 18 and kids that age experiment with stuff like that,” said Caroline De Freitas, 34 and a nursing student. “We really need a way to deal with that that type of crisis without using deadly force.”