Campus "Security"

17 Apr 08

Comment on campus "security" from one of our students attending a state university in the Southwest:

"Yesterday, we had yet another 'Campus Lock-Down.' I'm a 'Resident-Advisor ' in one of our dormitories, and I was advised, via cell-hone, that ' a-man-with-a-gun' was seen on campus. No details, of course, and I was ordered not to breath a word of it to anyone!

Under, 'lock-down,' no one is supposed to go in or out of our dorms, but, of course, there is no way to enforce that. And, students are told nothing aside from that fact that there is a lock-down in place. As you can imagine, with so many false alarms, such 'lock-downs' have long-since become a local joke and are now largely ignored by the student population! While campus bureaucrats scurry about in a desperate attempt to justify their existence, students, and faculty, nonchalantly continue to come and go as if nothing is happening! We were never given any additional information, via e-mal norcell phone, and the 'lock-down,' that no one paid any attentionto anyway, eventually faded away.

Yes, we have 'security' cameras, but none are actually monitored in real time! Videos are only viewed after the fact. Big help! We do have a campus PD, but they are all unarmed! I'm not sure what they are supposedto do. I' m fairly sure they don't know what they're supposed to do! Most students didn't even know about the lock-down until their parents, watchingit all on TV, called to advise them!

Since the VA Tech shootings, the foregoing is apparently the best we can do.

So, those of us who actually live here naturally consider the whole 'system' a joke! We know that no one in the Administration gives a damn about us, and that we are thus 'on our own.'

Accordingly, several friends and I have put together an informal arrangement between ourselves, whereby, when the next lock-down occurs, we will all assemble at a pre-arranged location, pile into one of our cars, and then drive across town to the home of one of our parents. We've decided that ' escape-and-evade' is going to be the best tactic.

Failing that, I'm armed, and, as your student, I know how to take care of myself. Of course, this is in contemptuous violation of campus 'rules, but I' ve already decided that my name will not be appearing on any 'victim list!'"

Comment: "The proposition at debate is a socio-political one: it is possible and practicable to maintain a comfortable and reasonably secure social order with lethal weapons not only ubiquitously present, but in a high state of readiness? Naive VBCs can't imagine how it can be so, never mind how they could be capable of doing it. Yet, Operators do it routinely."

D Kahn

Yes, we do!

/John