Wednesday, September 13, 2017
sdsucollegian.com
SOUTH DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT-RUN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1885
Mother claims arrested daughter suffered attack by campus officer GARRETT AMMESMAKI News Editor
Breaking ground on Animal Disease Research and Diagnostics Lab
This story will be updated as more information is provided. Melissa Mentele of Emery is alleging her daughter, a minor, was in a “violent” altercation with a university police officer Sept. 9 on the South Dakota State campus. According to multiple Facebook posts, Melissa said her daughter, a senior at Emery High School, suffered dislocated bones in her hand and multiple scrapes and bruises when a UPD officer arrested her and her sister Lillian at 11:27 p.m. Saturday on campus. Melissa said her daughter has been charged with resisting arrest. Lillian tweeted the morning of Sept. 10 that her sister was breathalyzed and blew a .03. According to the tweet, Lillian has been charged with resisting arrest and obstructing a law enforcement officer. “The university is aware of the situation and looking into it immediately,” said Director of University Marketing Mike Lockrem. As of Sunday afternoon, SDSU reached out to the South Dakota Department of Criminal Investigation to help with the investigation of the incident, said Sara Rabern, public information officer for the attorney general’s office. UPD was not yet available for comment. Melissa and her husband received a phone call from Lillian and her sister Saturday night. The two were walking on campus with friends when they were confronted by the officer. The bones in her daughter’s hands were dislocated, Melissa said in a post she later deleted. She also posted photos of her daughter’s wrists and hands showing swelling and redness. Melissa said her family plans to pursue civil and criminal charges, but due to their attorney’s advice they are currently not releasing any more information. Many comments on Melissa’s Facebook post have agreed with her, saying they’ve had runins with the same officer in the past where he acted with excessive force. “I’ve never had any of my officers make any complaints with me regarding anything they’ve witnessed” while working with UPD, said Brookings Police Department Acting Chief Dave Erickson. Erickson was aware of the Facebook post and said injuries can occur during arrest for multiple reasons. “Each situation can be different, and there are a lot of factors that can play into the actual arrest or detainment of an individual: the level of resistance that may be presented by a suspect, the level of compliance and then obviously the level of force used by the officer all play into how the outcome is,” Erickson said. “Whether or not there’s injury, whether there isn’t injury and then obviously if there is injury, was it justified? Was it as a result of the suspects actions? Was it a result of the officer using too much force? There’s a lot of different factors that play into that.” In a later post, Melissa said “our family was not taught to “comply.”
VETERINARY SCIENCE
Collegian graphic by ELLIE THOMPSON
School, state collaborate in upgrading laboratory ALISON DURHEIM Reporter
S
outh Dakota’s Animal Disease Research and Diagnostics Lab located on campus is receiving renovations and expansions that will allow the lab to further its work in maintaining animal and human health. South Dakota State Uni-
versity President Barry Dunn and Gov. Dennis Daugaard attended the Sept. 7 ceremony to break ground on the upgrades to ADRDL, which are slated to be completed in 2020. “This is the best of us. We’re looking forward, we’re being proactive, we collaborated. The state is showing tremendous leadership and vi-
sion to fund it,” Dunn said. Breaking ground for the $58 million expansion and renovation of the ADRDL building gained momentum in 2014, but has been in the works for nearly a decade. The building is funded through the state since it is a state building located on campus used by the school. The lab was built in 1967
LANE SPEIRS • The Collegian
and upgraded in 1993, but it is in need of renovations to stay relevant. The upgrades include an area equipped to hold potentially lethal diseases, as well as more space to accommodate new technologies. An area known as a Biosafety Level 3 Lab will be added to hold serious pathogens so the ADRDL can stay on the forefront of controlling possible future outbreaks. “We are part of the National Animal Health Laboratory Network, that’s a USDA organization, and to be a tier one laboratory you need a BSL-3 lab, at least a portion of the lab,” said Jane Christopher-Hennings, the director of the Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences Department. The BSL-3 space will allow the lab to keep certain pathogens separate. “Some of the things we do work on can obviously be human pathogens, which is called zoonosis or zoonotic agents, and those can be passed between animals to people or people to animals, it works both ways,” Hennings said, “and we don’t see any live animals here so we just want to make sure everybody is safe in handling any pathogens we might see.” The lab has played an influential role in testing for animal diseases and pathogens, including a pathogen plaguing the swine industry in the 1990s and assisting Minnesota researchers during the bird flu outbreak in 2015.
Continued to A3
Jane Hennings discussing the groundbreaking of the Animal Disease Research and Diagnostic Lab with South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard Sept. 7.
SDBOR proposes $10.3 million plan to improve financial aid IAN LACK Reporter The South Dakota Board of Regents has proposed a new program to distribute more financial aid to in-state college students in an effort to make public higher education more affordable. Dakota’s Promise is designed to close the gap between existing financial aid and the cost of attendance for South Dakota college students, according to a press release from SDBOR. “After exhausting all existing aid options, many of our
students still have unmet need. That gap may prevent a student from attending college or completing their degree,” SDBOR President Bob Sutton said in the press release. South Dakota was ranked the second-to-last state for providing student aid based on financial circumstances in a 2012 report from the Brookings Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, DC. South Dakota also has the second-highest rate of students graduating with debt, at 71 percent, according to a 2016 report from the Institute for College
Access and Success. In a prepared statement, Students’ Association gave its support for Dakota’s Promise. “By allowing greater access to education, we remain truthful to our land-grant mission,” the statement read. “Moving forward, we hope to show support for this initiative in whatever way possible.” The statement also indicated that a resolution of endorsement would be drafted to “represent student voices in support of this matter.” For the past six years, SDBOR Vice President of Academic Affairs Paul Turman has ad-
vocated for continued expansion of a needs-based scholarship program like Dakota’s Promise. “I think for those students who are not sure where they are going to come up with the cost to cover their education, I think this program will ensure that those students are not held out from fulfilling their dreams,” Turman said. “At the same time, it gives institutions the capacity to keep more students in-state.”
Continued to A3