Texas State U. Police Chief Resigns Amid Racial Tensions on Campus

Texas State U.

The police chief at Texas State University has resigned, effective immediately, less than two weeks after his department arrested four protesters who had tried to block student senators from leaving a parking garage.

The decision to arrest the protesters, at least three of whom were students, inflamed an already tense racial climate on the campus, which has been rocked in recent years by white-supremacist leafleting and by protests over demands for diversity.

The police chief, Jose L. Bañales, turned in his resignation on Tuesday, a campus spokesman, Jayme Blaschke, confirmed. Blaschke said he could not discuss the reasons for his departure because it was a personnel matter. Capt. Rickey D. Lattie has been appointed interim police chief.

The arrests, during finals week, followed a 48-hour sit-in last month, in which students demanded the resignation of the student-government president, Connor Clegg. He had angered some students by calling for the defunding of the student newspaper over a controversial op-ed that criticized “whiteness.” The student government subsequently found Clegg guilty of articles of impeachment.

Students also called for an accelerated time frame for various diversity initiatives that are underway, including new minors in African-American studies and Latino studies and the hiring of a lawyer with experience in immigration law.

Students who staged the sit-in said the administration hadn’t done enough to counter the threats and leafleting by white-supremacist groups that have targeted the campus, in San Marcos, over the past year.

The four protesters were accused of interference with public duties of a peace officer and obstructing a highway or other passageway; both charges are misdemeanors.

A police affidavit said the students had positioned themselves behind a vehicle in which two student senators were trying to exit the parking garage. When the student senators got into a campus-police vehicle, the four protesters moved in front of that, in a continued effort to prevent them from leaving, the affidavit said.

Protesters said Clegg’s leadership reflected a broader pattern of insensitivity to the growing number of minority students at Texas State.

Texas State takes pride in the growing diversity of its campus, where white students now make up 47 percent of the enrollment, Hispanic students 36 percent, and black students 11 percent. In 2012 white students made up 57 percent of the enrollment, Hispanic students 29 percent, and black students 7 percent.

Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.