Jessie MarkovetzEditor-in-chief

“UPD discriminates against me because I have gotten in trouble in the past. Their main objective is to harass aspiring young adults of this society. P.S. I have unpaid parking tickets?8 of them! Hee, hee!”

This rambling assault on our campus’s police department came from a survey written by the Intro. to Criminal Justice class, as a research project conducted by Ms. Caroline Mitchell.

This survey anonymously polled approximately 800 SDSU students of all ages and genders to get their opinion of the University Police Department and of safety in general.

Like the above student, who has certainly met with an officer or two in his day, many of the surveys reflect feelings toward law enforcement that make Charles Manson’s “I’ll kill everyone” speech sound like Dr. Seuss.

The amazing thing about this poll is how primitive many of our fellow students have become.

While the majority of the verbal assaults came from men, students in general care about fellow humans about as much as the hyena that eats her own young.

Nearly 30 percent of the students surveyed would NOT assist a victim of a crime. Basically, that means if you were lying in the street because some 400-pound giant nearly beat you to death, three out of every ten students that walk by would yell, “HA HA” like Nelson, the thug from “The Simpsons.”

Some students would be Good Samaritans and help out their peers in a bad situation. But, if that individual needing assistance were a police officer, 66 percent would not help, but instead point a finger and say, “I smell bacon.”

If it were a cop lying in the street, not only would most students walk by and laugh, two of them would actually stop and kick ’em in the groin. They better hope that cop doesn’t have to protect them from a beating or mugging.

Sure it stinks to get a parking ticket, nobody likes to be pulled over and no one has ever had a great time going to jail in handcuffs, but is the UPD really like the Gestapo when they punish individuals who are breaking the law?

Let’s use a little common sense.

But, if all this legal talk just ticks you off, heed the words of one insightful fellow. He said on his survey, I don’t really care about this legal stuff, “but where is my free SDSU ice cream coupon?”

Nathan Sanderson proposes that UPD give out free ice cream with tickets to promote student goodwill. Support his plan at [email protected].