With the freedom of college comes a lot of responsibilty, and Patrol Sergeant Jonathon Anderson has some advice for new students on dealing with UPD.

DUI – Driving while in the influence

“The biggest things people get arrested for are obviously alcohol and drug-related. The biggest concern is driving under the influence of either alcohol or some other neurotic drug. It happens more often than we like to see. There are plenty of ride opportunities for people like the BATA bus. I know it gets cold in South Dakota, but you can always walk. It is always smarter than getting in a car and driving.”

Alcohol consumption under 21

“We know that it is going to happen; our biggest thing is keeping people safe while they do that. We see a lot of people doing really hard binge drinking ,so they have really high alcohol percentages in their blood. We would like to see less of that. If you do encounter law enforcement, be honest with us, we already know you’ve been drinking by the odor of alcohol coming from them. They don’t need to lie to us or anything like that. They are more likely to get a warning if they are honest with law enforcement.”

Drugs

“Currently, medical marijuana is legalized as of July 1, 2021. Now, if you are under the age of 21, there is going to be an issue with that. Even if recreational marijuana is allowed by the Supreme Court and is legal, if you are under 21 it’s still not legal. It’s like drinking underage. Whereas, if they are over 21 and they have people under 21 in the car, we are still going to be searching that car because of those people and the marijuana. Just because it’s sort of legal does not mean that students at SDSU should start going out smoking a lot of marijuana. It is not allowed in the residence halls, it has a strong odor and you can still get arrested for DUI in the vehicle, smoking or ingesting marijuana.”

Fake IDs

“Over the last year, we have arrested over 100 students for fake IDs. They are fairly easy to get nowadays. We are aware of them; they do not come back as valid through our system, so that way we can make an arrest for them. It is not just a citation for them and you are free to go, it’s one of those things where we take people to jail if they are caught with an unregistered driver’s license.”

Open container in public

“If you are drinking, you cannot drink in public, unless you are on someone else’s actual property. If you are on the sidewalk, street or walking through campus and they have an open container, they are going to be stopped by law enforcement. The same thing will be with marijuana in public, even if they are over 21; it’s still not going to be allowed. You’ve got to consume it in private.”

Vandalism/ Theft

“It’s not your personal property, leave it alone. The same thing goes for bicycle theft or theft from vehicles. I would really like it if the students who are coming in would know that the small towns that they might have been from, Brookings is different. You can’t just leave your doors unlocked all the time. So lock your car doors, keep your valuables out of sight and lock your residential halls rooms.”

Fleeing from Law Enforcement

“Don’t just run from the cops for no reason. A lot of the time, someone would run and shout, ‘it’s the cops,’ and everyone who runs will have more violations against them. We are more likely to cite them than if they’d just stood there and cooperated. If they do run from us, we are going to chase them and probably tackle them. We have electronic key cards that have every single card on campus, so it’s not like you are going to be able to run and hide somewhere.”

Recommendations

Officers

Be polite to them; treat them like how you want to be treated. It’s to your best advantage to be honest with them, as well.

“My boss has a policy that if you are under 21 in the car and you are the passenger and you have been drinking, as long as you have a sober driver that has no alcohol in their system and nobody lies to us while we stop them in their traffic stop, they get to go free, no underage consumption for them because they were responsible enough to get a sober driver and when they interacted with us, they didn’t try to lie to us about drinking or their age or anything like that.”

Walking

Walk from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’. Don’t hoot and shout. Don’t bring attention to yourself or to your group.

Cars

If you don’t use your car frequently, you should still go out and check it out about once a week, Anderson said. Make sure there is no damage. Start it and run it for a little bit, especially during winter, because it’s likely that your car may not start.

Safety Escorts

You can call for a taxi, sober friend or even call the police department for an escort. Their number is 605-688-5117, though it’s just for on campus. You can look at the police department’s website for more information.