Friday, October 07, 2005

Campus Police Gone Wild – Repost & Update

A student was stripped of his right to speech by an overly zealous campus police officer only 24 hours before Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tim Kaine was to debate third-party Independent aspirant Russ Potts at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

Wearing a sign on his chest that said, “Recruiters Lie, Don’t be Deceived,” the student stood in front of military college campus recruiters as they tried to drum up business; and the military headhunters, not liking his message soon began yelling at him; and before too long, one officer ripped up his sign.

With all the shouting and mayhem, campus police were alerted and when they arrived, they asked the student for some identification; because he had none, they then promptly arrested him: without identification, the student unavoidably became a trespasser.

Tariq Khan, 27, a Pakistani American who has already served four years the U.S. Air Force, says a barrage of ethic slurs followed the exchange and his arrest. Maybe if you look Middle Eastern and protest on campus, police has the right to arrest you and make disparaging remarks about your ethnicity in the process.

What is troubling about this incidence is that Khan wasn't even trespassing. He had a right to be on campus as a sociology student at GMU, equal to campus police and military recruiters.

Besides, when did it become a crime to walk around a free country without identification?

Police eventually learned Khan was an actual student at GMU; and had to cover their hindparts with new excuses for hauling him off.

The charge for trespassing remained, only the reason switched; it's no longer because Khan was not a student but rather because he was passing out flyers without a permit. Oh yea, and creating a ruckus.

A source at GMU's police department says campus police have very little people skills and no training. Instead, their focus is on bio-terror and emergency preparedness; and commands by immediate superiors are to be strictly and promptly obeyed, without question. I suppose they expect the rest of the world to follow their lead, whether a situation warrants such extreme allegiance or not, as was the case with poor hapless demonstrator.

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