With this past week's report of a student being assaulted by Safety and Security and the Hanover Police, the student body has been handed yet another message about how irresponsible and dangerous some people at this college are. Thankfully, the College has acted very efficiently and dutifully in attempting to quash this issue through the appointment of a special commission to investigate the matter.
How many of these incidents have to take place before any positive action will be taken to correct these egregious wrongs? Last winter, a student was tricked by S&S and taken from his room against his will to Dick's House after inquiring about the welfare of another friend who had already also been taken from her room to Dick's House. This past fall, an S&S officer illegally entered my fraternity without permission, came down to our basement and disrupted a house event demanding to see our taps to prove that we had an illegal keg, which, of course, we did not.
And now a student is assaulted and subjected to a wrongful arrest first for resisting arrest, later for underage intoxication and finally for underage possession, none of which were valid, all because an S&S officer decided to be a tough guy to some student who was just trying to sleep.
Thank goodness Special Prosecutor M. Lee Pelton has appointed a commission. That should speed things up quite a bit. We should see some positive results sometime before the millennium, with any luck. It is blatantly clear to everyone under the age of 23 that there is something rotten in the state of Dartmouth. Why we are continually subjected to this sort of harassment is beyond me. I have had two encounters with S&S, and both times I was wrongfully accused of doing something I was not. The first time was intoxication and the second time was streaking the Green. How do normal people tell when you weren't the one streaking the Green? When you have your clothes on! The fact that I was walking across the Green when a bunch of funnymen sprinted by me does not make me guilty by association.
Enough with the exorbitant fines at Dick's House. Some people really are sick and need to be cared for when they drink too much. Dick's House is a valuable and essential part of college safety, and they will continue to be helpful in preventing possible drinking-related accidents. However, the method in which this and other protective measures have been employed to date is sorely lacking. Does it take a case of police brutality to make this crystallize this point? I guess so. I expect and demand that somebody get their ass fired for this.
Let me paint another picture for you now. One in which the CCAOD recommendations have been implemented, and S&S can enter fraternities without permission. One Saturday night, an officer is driving down Webster Avenue and hears a lot of music and laughing from the third-floor window of a fraternity. He decides that he will invent a noise complaint and goes to investigate. He arrives at the third floor, finds the door open and sees a couple brothers drinking and laughing. He confiscates the alcohol and demands that all the brothers remain in the room until he can call the police and have them charged with underage possession and consumption ... he gets kicked in the face and thrown out the third floor window. This is obviously an exaggeration. Nothing like that would really happen, but the scene would be quite interesting.
Does the College honestly expect privately owned and operated fraternities to subject themselves to a group of hostile and unlawful officers who already have enough trouble respecting the rights of students living in dorms? I hope not. Will the students of Dartmouth ever derive some sense of safety or security from such actions? I doubt it. Will it change? No way. Why? Because of the great dollar sign in the sky. The insurance corporation. Dartmouth will have to pay more money if it is more lenient on its alcohol policy, and since they can't bear to part with one single acre of the northern half of New Hampshire, they will instead violate and allow others to violate the civil rights of students so that they can avoid liability. With any luck, this last incident will reach up and bite them in the ass on that one.
For the S&S readers out there, let me say this: just because we may all dress the same, it does not mean that we all are suspect and need to be harassed. If we are breaking the law, we are accountable to the police. Your priorities are Safety and Security. As defined by the Dartmouth College Information System dictionary: Safety: the condition of being safe; freedom from danger, risk, or injury; Security: something that gives or assures safety.
Now that these definitions are clear, I suggest you change your name to either SS&H: Safety, Security and Harassment, or start using some discretion on how you put these words into practice. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure you're nice people and have nice families and happy lives except for when we students get uppity, but try to remember exactly how you got to that point of happiness with a nice family and a good life, and maybe you will see exactly why you need to leave us alone.
I didn't mention the island. Don't hurt me.
