2008 Woodie Awards
SRU police wasting time on traffic ticketing
Issue date: 10/7/05 Section: Rocket Letters
To the Editor:
I would like to take a moment to point out some exceptional police work over this past weekend on our own SRU campus. As I was driving home to my apartment at 1 a.m., I came to a "rolling stop" at a stop sign on stadium drive. I did not think much of this, as the campus was completely deserted and there wasn't a motorized vehicle or human being as far as the eye could see. There was, however, a police cruiser hiding in the shadows waiting for an unsuspecting victim that had managed to elude my field of vision.
The officer proceeded to pull me over and called for backup, bringing in another police vehicle. When questioned about the incident I answered the officer's inquiries respectfully and honestly. This satisfied the officer enough for him to call in a citation for my criminal act. The officer reasoned that drunken students could have run out in front of me while I was sitting at the stop sign, which I found quite ironic, because monitoring those very students seemed like a much more appropriate use of his time. For the next 20 minutes, as I awaited my ticket, I mulled over what necessities in my budget I could cut out to afford the $105 fine. I also thought of all the drunken driving, vandalization, underage drinking, fighting and other genuinely dangerous criminal acts that had occurred during the half hour I was pulled over. It seemed like the real crime being committed was the negligence of actual student safety. Over this brief semester alone I have heard several complaints from fellow students who were in actual need of police assistance, in which case the response was slow and inadequate at best, even non-existent at times.
Yes, I admit that technically I had broken the law by failing to come to a full and complete stop at a stop sign on a deserted campus in the middle of the night, and yes, I understand that life is not fair. My intent of this letter is not to bring attention to a single undeserving traffic violation, but rather question the allocation of the police force here on campus. I feel the efforts of the campus police department would be better served if they were redirected towards looking out for the true well being of its students, rather than spent issuing citations for petty traffic violations.
Brandon Schmitt
Senior
Athletic Training major
I would like to take a moment to point out some exceptional police work over this past weekend on our own SRU campus. As I was driving home to my apartment at 1 a.m., I came to a "rolling stop" at a stop sign on stadium drive. I did not think much of this, as the campus was completely deserted and there wasn't a motorized vehicle or human being as far as the eye could see. There was, however, a police cruiser hiding in the shadows waiting for an unsuspecting victim that had managed to elude my field of vision.
The officer proceeded to pull me over and called for backup, bringing in another police vehicle. When questioned about the incident I answered the officer's inquiries respectfully and honestly. This satisfied the officer enough for him to call in a citation for my criminal act. The officer reasoned that drunken students could have run out in front of me while I was sitting at the stop sign, which I found quite ironic, because monitoring those very students seemed like a much more appropriate use of his time. For the next 20 minutes, as I awaited my ticket, I mulled over what necessities in my budget I could cut out to afford the $105 fine. I also thought of all the drunken driving, vandalization, underage drinking, fighting and other genuinely dangerous criminal acts that had occurred during the half hour I was pulled over. It seemed like the real crime being committed was the negligence of actual student safety. Over this brief semester alone I have heard several complaints from fellow students who were in actual need of police assistance, in which case the response was slow and inadequate at best, even non-existent at times.
Yes, I admit that technically I had broken the law by failing to come to a full and complete stop at a stop sign on a deserted campus in the middle of the night, and yes, I understand that life is not fair. My intent of this letter is not to bring attention to a single undeserving traffic violation, but rather question the allocation of the police force here on campus. I feel the efforts of the campus police department would be better served if they were redirected towards looking out for the true well being of its students, rather than spent issuing citations for petty traffic violations.
Brandon Schmitt
Senior
Athletic Training major
