By
Nick Zeckets
Every weekend around the UA, students don their most stylin' threads and strut their best pimp limp en route to house parties. However, rarely will one of these fun fests make it beyond midnight as the Po-po roll up nine times out of 10 to send underage drinkers running and write tickets to the party house dwellers. Cops are wasting their time and taxpayer money with house party raids.
Last Saturday, the groove was flowing at a house near the track and field facilities. The stereo was barely audible from inside the home and people were cordial on the outside patio. Nonetheless, Five-O rolled up after a tip from the ghetto bird. Not just one bacon boy party pooper came, but rather 15 some-odd cop cars showed up as the UAPD tried to represent in full effect.
Blues ushered each partier out towards their respective rides, Shaved-head fun-Nazis carded drinkers and flexed undeserved force. They had an excuse though, or at least they said they did.
Supposedly, the police were responding to a call that an unknown vagrant was waving a gun around the area. Oh, that wasn't true, but to the invalid college students looking for a safe, good time, it was a good excuse to toss him or her out.
Even when a fiesta is in control, the cops try to push everybody around. What exactly are these officers trying to prove? What are they trying to do?
While a slew of UA students report stolen bikes, wallets, and cars in the UAPD's jurisdiction along with numerous assault charges, little is done to bring criminals to justice. At least the numbers of found items evidences as much.
In 1999, there were 41 reports of assault and 16 arrests were made. The UAPD did well in 1999 by arresting three offenders for seven reported robberies, but what of all the other statistics? Only five of eight weapons charges were wrapped. That means, on a college campus, three students were toting weapons. I've never heard anyone say, "Jeepers, please don't point that Michelobe Light at me."
Perhaps the UAPD should be more concerned with other things. If U.S. citizens, at the age of 18, can carry a gun for the nation's defense and elect our legal representatives, why can we not make the mature decision to have a beer?
Regardless, house parties give college students a time to relax, to be with friends, to maybe have a couple drinks. House parties are not herding grounds for cops to make their ticket quotas.
Often times, house parties put on by college students are less rowdy than our older counterparts. Remember that New Years party mom's and pop's friends had last year? Hell, the whole house was drunk and kissing people they've just met and screaming. If only college parties could be that fun.
UAPD has nothing better to do. Don't get me wrong, without strong police departments and a feeling of real safety and law enforcement, anarchy would reign. Cops aren't all bad and many of them are great people with excellent senses of humor. However, there are those who want nothing more than to feel power. To tell some college punk what to do.
College house party busts are a waste of money and time. This is not a state of marshall law. Nay-do-wells are not among the 18-22 year old crowd from the UA.
The guy toting a knife on Fourth Avenue coming down on a defenseless student, or the idiot who shot his "friend" in fear of voodoo curses, those are people the police should pick up. Some immature freshman yacking after a few too many is a dumb stage of growing up. Getting cut up is not an acceptable growing pain.
Every violent crime can't be foreseen or avoided, but more emphasis can be placed there. To the po-po out there, don't feel threatened by the tone of this article, but feel moved to head off violent crimes. Cops can be helpful government instruments, yet too many times do they misuse power. In a college environment, students are in the midst of finding themselves and not confident enough to defend themselves against some power hungry cops. UAPD, keep us safe, not bored.
Nick Zeckets is a Political Science and near-Eastern studies junior. He can be reached at nick.zeckets@wildcat.arizona.edu.
