Alleged Campus Safety Misconduct

---

This page has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

see discussion page

If you can improve the page, please edit it. Once you have done so, you may remove this template. Please explain why you think the page deserves to stay on the discussion page or in your edit summary.

This page may be deleted within a couple days if no improvements are made. Please check the article history to see when this template was added.

---

Like the Campus Safety Log, but with a different spin.

Instances of Alleged Misconduct

Currently, the allegation comes first, followed by a chance for rebuttal or any other kind of argument against the allegation and the evidence used to support it. This page is currently under heavy discussion, so visit the Discussion page and join in.

Friday, May 16, 2008 (part 1)

Just after midnight, a campus safety officer detained two students walking in the basement of SMC and accused them of removing signs from bathroom doors and demanded to search one of their bags. When the students refused the search on the basis of their 4th amendment rights, the officer lied to them, saying that those rights did not apply on private property, and called the police. the police officer who searched AND violated the student's 4th amendment rights told the campus safety officer, "we cannot legally search them", however proceeded to searching both students, without a warrant and without consent.

• • Because the officer did not search the students their 4th amendment rights were not violated. The officer was offering the students an easy way out. If they had submitted to the search, it is likely they would have been referred to the Office of Student Development. When the police searched the students bags and found signs that had been taken down from restrooms in the buildings. The students were taken to jail for stealing college property. They were there less than an hour.
  • The previous comment is inane. My 4th amendment rights were violated--not by campus safety, but by the Galesburg police, as stated in the account above. The campus safety officer merely demanded an illegal search and lied about its being compulsory. This seems to me like misconduct; if it isn't, it should be. Further, if the campus safety officer had wanted to offer an "easy way out" demanding to search my property seems a strange way to do it.

The fact is that you broke the law by vandalizing college property and then tried to cover up the crime. Until you get your law degree, stop crying about your alleged "rights".

• • What? You need a law degree to have rights? Silly me, I thought all U.S. citizens got them. That certainly does explain a lot!
  • Campus Safety called the GPD to have the students arrested and searched because the students refused a search. It's a violation of the students' Fourth Amendment rights to manufacture probable cause for arrest and search out of a refusal to be searched; if it were not, then police and persons acting as police (like campus safety officers) would have a de facto right to search anything simply by asking for a search and then either being permitted to or taking probable cause from the refusal. This is exacerbated by the fact that the Campus Safety officer plainly and disingenuously portrayed the situation as one where they were required to submit to a search or go to jail for their refusal, a threat that has no basis in the law and would not have been held up in court had the college decided to pursue an action against the students (or the students against the college). Furthermore, to say that one needs a law degree to opine on what the law says is plainly absurd (I'm working on my law degree, by the way). By that logic, no Campus Safety or GPD officer is competent to understand or exercise the law, and thus no Knox student should feel bound by their alleged "authority", especially since they do not seem to understand the finer points of their and students' rights.

Every participant in this conversation is either wildly mistaken or basing assumptions on unsubstantiated information, which is equally ridiculous. That some of you did so at considerable length doesn't change any of that.

• Here's a fun informational nugget: Campus Safety can't actually give orders to the GPD. Therefore, they cannot "have [students] arrested."
• The assumption that probable cause to search was established by the refusal of a search is based only on a single party--who happens to feel particularly aggrieved--telling you that it was. The police may have a report. Has this been presented? Why not?
• The only thing that may, judging by the limited and biased information presented (by everyone involved in this conversation) be determined to have taken place as a result of a refusal to search is the notification of the police. That is not a violation of anyone's 4th amendment rights. A citizen who believes a crime is being committed by a person is not obligated to contact the police. A security guard who believes a crime is being committed by a person is not obligated to contact the police (unless their employer states that they are); they may have the option, as in this case, of resolving the matter by other means. If the person suspect of being engaged in criminal behavior decides not to accommodate that, that doesn't change the fact that the security guard is still under the belief that a crime is being committed by a person, and the offer to (and subsequent lack of accommodation by) the suspect person does not erase their ability to notify the police of that belief.

• • The question remains, then: what was the probable cause for the GPD's search of the students, if it was not Campus Safety pointing the finger?

• • That question may indeed remain. That question is best addressed first by a copy of the police report. That question is also in no way related to Campus Safety misconduct. However, it may remain.

Friday, May 16, 2008 (part 2)

Late, after Girl Talk, Campus Safety called the police on an intoxicated student who was on campus, violating the Good Samaritan policy.

• • The Good Samaritan policy only protects students from college rules, not federal, state, or local laws.

There is no such thing as a "Good Samaritan Policy" as evidenced by your dead link to same. Illinois' good samaritan law protects people who render first aid from being sued. It has nothing to do with criminal behavior such as underage drinking or public intoxication. Again...get your law degree and then we can talk.

• Whoa, whoa, so campus safety policy consists of the contents of the wiki fire? and because the link points to nothing the policy isn't in effect any more?? This explains even more! Thanks, Campus safety!!
  • Sadly, the policy was never put into effect, I don't believe. Student Senate passed it and the administration at least pretended to be receptive, but it was swept under the rug and never heard from again.

Stepping back from the childish, comical nitpicking about Wiki Fire links, the original "rebuttal" fact remains. Even if the "Good Samaritan Policy" were in effect, it does not protect students from the consequences of violating federal, state, or local laws. If the aggrieved party had actually read said policy, or perhaps was simply possessed of the basic understanding of where the authority of the college lies in relation to that of the government, he or she would be aware of that.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

In the early morning, a student left belongings in Founders, while computers were restarting, and Campus Safety took the liberty of searching the students personal belongings, without the student present, or consent from that student.

• • A Campus Safety Officer noticed money hanging out of an unattended purse. When he checked the property for an id, drug paraphernalia was found. Possession of drug paraphernalia is against college and state laws.
  • Once again, can you substantiate your claim that there was drug paraphernalia in the bag? Even if there was drug paraphernalia, its presence in the bag does not justify the search of the bag in that it was not apparent--just the money (which, last time I checked, is legal under state and college laws...

I was to one who found the drug pipe in the purse. I searched it to find the owner of the money and to ensure that there was nothing dangerous to my safety. Once again, you have no understanding of the law...

Am I the only person who found it bordering on ironic that someone asked another person to "substantiate" claims made in rebuttal to an originally unsubstantiated claim? At least you all now know how the minds of fanatics also work--"assertions I like are fact; assertions I disagree with should be dismissed or at least require far greater proof."

Fun fact: Good-faith searches of property (such as, for example, in a hunt for ID to locate the owner) are allowed. Evidence of criminal activity turned up as a result of this need not be ignored.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Campus security was seen and over heard referencing the use of pepper spray on a student during the afternoon.

• • This is hearsay. No student has ever been pepper sprayed. It is true that some Campus Safety Officers carry pepper spray for protection.
  • Has the author personally consulted all of the students at Knox college? Otherwise, the statement that "no student has ever been pepper sprayed" is worse than hearsay--it's...just say.

In recent memory, going back at least five years, no students have been pepper sprayed by a campus safety officer. Quit your whining about stupid stuff.

• • If it's really so stupid, can I pepper spray you?

Proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that you sir are an idiot.

• Which sir are you talking to?

This might be the single most ridiculous "conversation" since the last several conversations on this page. The use of pepper spray is a use of force that would require documentation. No such documentation has been presented by anyone in this discussion. The assertion that this was "referenced" by campus security is also done baselessly and without support. The assertion that any such "referencing" constitutes misconduct of any kind is also made baselessly.

Sometime during Fall Term 2008

A girl was approached by a man of large build wearing a hockey mask. Campus security reported this as a threat to the well-being of the general student body. That creepy guy in the hockey mask however, is in fact Knox's own version of Bigfoot, handing out hugs and fatal blows to the head at random.