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VOLUME 114 ISSUE 53
FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 2020 Published by Campus Communications, Inc. of Gainesville, Florida
Not officially associated with the University of Florida
HEAR
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Progressive Party candidates resign
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PARTY’S FACEBOOK PAGE WAS TAKEN DOWN By Chasity Maynard Alligator Staff Writer
Carly Blum // Contributing Photographer
Thieves Guilde actors Sierra Barnier, 18, and Kevin Otero, 24, perform a choreographed sword fight during a chess game.
Campus blue lights not used for emergencies often Calls resulted in 14 police reports in the past two years By Kyle Chambers Alligator Contributing Writer
Last semester, hundreds of students protested for UF to add emergency blue light phones to Fraternity Drive for weeks. They won in the end — four blue lights will be installed, which will make every area of campus officially dotted with
the emergency phones. But data from University Police suggests that blue lights aren’t utilized for emergency situations as often as they may seem. A total of 508 blue light activations were recorded on campus from Jan. 1, 2017 to Jan. 1, 2019, according to public records. Only 14 blue light activations resulted in a police
SPORTS/SPECIAL/CUTOUT Florida eager to bounce back in 2020
StoryGators description finish with comma, pg# 14 at The baseball season begins Feb. home against Marshall, pg. 11
report — around 2.7 percent of all activations since 2017. Blue light phones were initially installed on campus to act as a university-wide 24-hour security system. At the press of a button, students are instantly connected to UPD in an emergency. More than 330 blue light phones are currently active on campus, and each cost about
$15,000-$20,000 to install. According to UPD spokesman Brad Barber, not all of these 14 police reports were emergency reports, which are created for situations that require emergency services to be dispatched. Barber did not comment on
New poet? You know it.
Gainesville named its first city poet , pg. 5
Candidates running for Student Body vice president and treasurer for a new UF Student Government party all resigned within hours of each other after an audio clip some deemed as transphobic was leaked on Facebook. The 38-minute audio –– posted on the Facebook page of the Young Democratic Socialists of America at UF –– is a conversation between Alfredo Ortiz, Progressive Party’s Student Body presidential candidate and Nikolas Bindi, Progressive Party’s former vice-presidential candidate. In the recording, Ortiz said that “gender dysphoria is a psychological illness, and therefore it is bad.” In the recording, Ortiz continued, “There is a difference between wanting to appear to be a woman for aesthetic purposes versus believing you are a woman when you’re not. That is my only right-wing position.” Both Ortiz and Bindi admitted to The Alligator that they were in the recording, said that it was taken out of context and said it was recorded without their knowledge. Ortiz told The Alligator in a phone interview Thursday evening that he intends to announce his resignation in the future as a “peaceful transition of power.” “Even if this is completely out of context, it is 100 percent illegal...it’s still comments that hurt individuals, and there probably should be an apology from him [Ortiz], due to those comments,” Bindi said in a phone interview to The Alligator Thursday evening. “It might not make the situation right, but it will be the first step.”
SEE BLUE LIGHTS, PAGE 6
SEE SG, PAGE 6
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Knight and day
An annual medieval festival added an extra weekend, pg. 7
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