Last Sunday, there were new rumors that even more people were arrested over the weekend at parties around Tufts campus. Only three weeks into my senior year, I have heard about more arrests of Tufts students than I remember happening during the past three years combined. Stories of the first few incidents were passed around campus, with the unlucky few being both pitied and teased.... That is, until the "few" started becoming greater in number, and the stories became more frequent in telling. Now there is a report that a Fletcher party was broken up, where members of a certain police force were, again, slap happy with their handcuffs. The police presence around campus is ever growing, much to the chagrin of Jumbos, many of whom are asking the same question I am.
What happened over this past summer, that suddenly our campus is constantly being patrolled by both campus and city police officers, who feel the need to curb much of the weekend social scene around campus?
This question needs to be answered. If something happened over the summer that would merit this increased police presence, then, as a student body, we have the right to know. If nothing in particular happened, though, what is this new social policy about, and why has it come into place with such an iron fist?
It is easy to say that this is a problem only affecting a small portion of the Tufts population, and that we should be worried about things other than partying around campus. Well, guess what? The real issue does not lie in the diminished party scene on campus. Rather, it lies in the fact that Tufts students are beginning to experience feelings of apprehension directed towards those entrusted most heavily with the job to protect and serve us. More and more, I have been hearing students express their distrust and disgust towards police officials. On the other side of the coin, I have seen instances where it seems like the feeling is mutual on the side of officials, and this is troublesome to say the very least.
On one particularly regulated night, I thought my friends and I were pretty much removed from the wrath, since we were off campus and watching TV. The aftermath of a party a few weekends ago had squad cars patrolling up and down Winthrop Street for at least a half hour ordering people, who were obviously on their way back to their homes already, to "move it along" and "go home."
I was watching this scene with five of my friends when a police officer from TUPD drove up and screamed at us for nothing more than sitting on a porch. (As a point, we did not have anything on the porch that would have raised cause for this order.)
I bring up this example because it demonstrates the aggressive mentality that many people on this campus are sensing. Those of us who were ordered inside an off-campus apartment were upset, not because our non-existent party was broken up, but because we felt that our rights were being usurped. That may be strong language, but how else were we supposed to feel if we couldn't even sit on a porch at 11:30 p.m. without being treated like children who were out past their bedtimes?
Of course we need security around campus. But what kind of message is being sent to us when random gatherings, of any size, are being broken up quickly and swiftly, while, when a real emergency arises, there is a wait to get through to the operator on duty? This unfortunately happened a few weeks ago, when it took almost five minutes to get through to someone on the emergency telephone line following a serious accident on campus.
If University and security officials feel that there is a real problem on campus, then let us know by telling us. Destroying any semblance of a social scene we have on campus with your whole security force and threatening arrests are not appropriate methods of communication. Likewise, breaking up any and all parties around campus is not a viable solution. All this is doing is driving people to drink heavily behind closed doors, where it can't be regulated. Communication is the key to solving this problem before it gets to the point that relations between students and officials are completely severed.
Moira Poe is a senior double majoring in political science and American studies.
