Nigerian Student Confronted By Police In The US For Sleeping

Nigerian student Lolade Siyonbola has shared with the BBC her disturbing story about being confronted by police in the US for napping at a common room at Yale University.

The postgraduate student said that, on 8 May, a white student living in the Ivy League university’s hall of graduate studies saw her napping on a sofa in the shared room and called the police.

“I had a paper I was working on in the common room,” Lolade told the BBC. “I was working on it for much of the day, and I was exhausted so I thought I’d have a nap.
“This is normal, you know? People sleep there all the time.
“At 01:45 [local time], I hear someone come into the room. Then the lights come on. I hear someone say ‘you’re not supposed to be here’.
“The force with which she was saying it was very loud. She was yelling.
“She said she could see me clearly from the doorway. I’m just waking up, thinking ‘what is happening’?
“She said ‘I’m a resident here, you’re not supposed to be sleeping here, you’re not supposed to be here, I’m calling the police’.”
“White people think they have licence to use the police as a weapon against people of colour,” Ms Siyonbola added.