By Stephen Cooney
Their big white trucks slink through campus on a KGB-like mission looking for anyone breaking any law anywhere on this campus. The officers dressed in all brown from head to toe sneak through dark hallways and the orange glow of street lamps hunting for students.
They are out to get everyone, and there is no stopping them-a bunch of officers with nothing better to do than harass the poor students out trying to enjoy their Saturday night.
Well, at least that is what you would think when you hear the way students talk about Public Safety across campus. So, I spent all of last Saturday night in the passenger seat of a Public Safety truck trying to find out what these officers are really all about.
Sounds like a lot of fun, I know. What else would any one want to do but ride around all night and watch Public Safety hunt down students drinking like Dog the Bounty Hunter?
Probably hop the fence over by Oak Street to sneak into Hofstra USA or blow the entrance off at Hempstead Turnpike because that seemed to be the number one activity for groups of people this Saturday.
Oh yeah, and about public safety and their espionage. Most students couldn’t be more wrong about why Public Safety officers are out driving around campus. Think about it: I just wrote that kids were hopping the fence trying to sneak on campus, and other people were blowing the entrance gate. There are a few more important things happening across campus on a Saturday night than the party in your room.
“It is our mission to make students safe,” said Ronald Moore, the operations manager for Public Safety, on Saturday night, while we were making a round. “That’s all we want. We want them to be safe.”
Honestly, I don’t think I could agree with that statement any more at least about the group of officers I spent the evening with on Saturday night. They are out there trying to make sure the campus is safe and nothing happens to the students who pay to get an education.
Moore honestly cares about the students and his staff more than anyone I have ever seen. How do I know this? I saw it. I watched Moore and Officer Roxy Coreas drive a car with two vomit-covered drunk females all the way back to their dorm rooms just to make sure nothing happened on the way home. Truth be told, they were happy to do it. The officers on the tour I rode a long with were doing nothing more than their job. Not hunting down students to write citations; they were just doing their job, and doing a pretty fine job at it, actually.
“You see it right here. See anyone calling for students in trouble,” Moore said. “It was the two guys fighting in the room that got in trouble.”
The students who did manage to get caught the whole night were doing things they should not have been doing, for the most part. I understand that no one wants to be bothered by authority. We are all adults for the most part, but sometimes we do not act like it and that is usually when Public Safety gets involved.
Every time the officers issued a citation on campus, it was for one of either two reasons: another student called to complain about the noise in a room, or the individual had done something that they really did not think through, such as blowing the entrance gate or hopping the fence, for instance and in some cases, fighting with their roommate. For the most part these things seemed to fall on public safeties lap like the homework assignments do to students in finals week.
Think about it. It is these officer’s jobs to patrol the campus, and for the most part they are out there making sure the campus itself is safe. That’s right, the campus: the physical buildings that we all study and probably sleep in. When they do have to respond to a situation, it is usually because someone calls them.
What if the guys jumping the fence were not just a set of young kids trying to sneak into a party? You would probably be pretty mad that no one rushed over to the fence to see who was crawling over it. Better yet what if the person blowing the entrance gate was not someone’s friend on campus another good example that everyone would be quick to complain about.
Look, all I am really trying to say is no one on campus is out to get you. The officers would honestly spend their night unlocking doors for students who “forgot their key” than get anyone in trouble. Just when you step out of line and people complain they simply have to do their job.
Think about this before you want to complain about Public Safety, or lean your head out of the window and call an officer an a**hole because you are blocking the road late on Saturday night. Really, who is being the a**hole? The guy who is just doing his job, or the kid blocking the road?
I have never been one to side with cops. I have far too many friends who get arrested on a bi-weekly basis for being drunk or skateboarding to be really fond of authority, but honestly these officers are not the KGB, and no one is looking for you to make a mistake. Just be smart.