4A - Monday, November 28, 2011 The Michigan Daily -- michigandaily.com I 4A - Monday, November 28, 2011The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom GJ11 MJihc11gan adlU Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com MICHELLE DEWITT STEPHANIE STEINBERG and EMILY ORLEY NICK SPAR EDITOR IN CHIEF EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS MANAGING EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. Imran Syed is the public editor. He can be reached at publiceditor@michigandaily.com. Work with campus police DPS meeting encourages student cooperation In an effort to foster transparency, assuage anxieties and discuss the apparent prevalence of crime on campus the University's Department of Public Safety held its first public meeting on Nov. 22. The meeting was an important step toward bridging the gap between students and DPS and will hopefully encourage a coopera- What 'security'really looks like have no idea when the authori- tative history of post-9/11 America, in all its sadness, paranoia and staggering indif- ference to the human cost of war, will be written. How- ever, I think I know what the jacket art will look like. NEILL Even by the MOHAMMAD embarrassingly low standards we've set over the last 10 years, with 150,000 civilian deaths in Iraq - that's at least 50 Iraqis for every one American lost on 9/11 - and airport security measures that increasingly resemble systematic molestation, the viral video of the recent police crackdown at the University of Cali- fornia, Davis is chilling. The univer- sity administration asked police to break up a peaceful, completely non- violent demonstrationunder the pre- tense that the protesters hadviolated a ban on camping on school grounds. Police officers responded to the scene in full riot gear, and in a calm and orderly fashion, proceeded to douse the protesters in pepper spray as they sat motionless onthe ground. True to form, Chancellor Linda Katehi initially lied about the cir- cumstances of the riot deployment, claiming that the police only resort- ed to pepper spray after they were surrounded by protesters. once the video surfaced, Katehi was forced to recant; she later appeared on "Good Morning America" to appeal to the victims to help "start the healing process and move forward." Based on their actions, neither Katehi nor any other implicated Davis administrators deserve to be a part of that process, and hope- fully they'll be forced from office soon. However, that leaves another important question unanswered: Why does Davis, a rural town of only 30,000 people or so, have a riot squad in the first place? The answer, once again, has a lot to do with 9/11. It's difficult to adequately describe just how much money the United States has spent on the nebulous, ill-defined concept of "homeland security" since 2001. The numbers themselves - at least $30 billion a year in each of the last 10 years - hardly seem adequate. Much of this spending is granted by the Department of Homeland Security to the states, and then from the states to individual coun- ties and towns. From the perspec- tive of local law enforcement, .Homeland Security might as well be Scrooge McDuck's money bin. It's free money that law enforce- ment can spend on neat toys with- out having to suffer the various indignities of the normal budget process. All it takes is a few magic words on a grant application, like "first-responder preparedness," and anything resembling good sense immediately vanishes from conver- sation and is replaced by a nice big check from the federal government. That's how officials in Keith County in the Nebraska panhandle (population: 8,370) were able to spend $45,000 on diving equipment to help terrorist-proof a local reser- voir. That's why many local police stations' storage lockers frequently resemble a deleted scene from the "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare" series, with surplus M-14 and M-16 riflesshowing up in places as remote as Jasper, Fla. (population: 2,000). That's also why hundreds of small police and sheriff's departments, including one in Adrian, Mich., now have retro-fitted armored person- nel carriers, whose primary uses seem to be tearing up city streets. Harold Peterson, the director of emergency management in Keith County, told the Los Angeles Times earlier this year that "it's impor- tant to understand the homeland security equipment wasn't bought to be tucked away for the day there would be some terrorism event." Of course it wasn't - not when you could be using it to play soldier and intimidate innocent civilians. This summer, the Department of Educa- tion used its militarized police force to execute a no-knock warrant in Stockton, Calif. After three young children had been dragged out of bed and into a waiting patrol car, it turned out that the SWAT team was at the wrong address. Why does Davis have a riot squad in the first place? In a way, the student demon- strators in Davis were lucky. The unprovoked pepper spray attack was vicious but certainly prefer- able to being flattened by an APC. Next time, though, they might not be so lucky. The Federal Aviation Administration is expected to adopt new rules this January that allow civilian agencies to purchase and operate drone aircrafts. The same technology that's been terrorizing the Afghan countryside will soon be available to every small-town sher- iff with a Rambo complex right here at home. I hope that someone is able to a snap a picture of the first Predator look-alike used to attack protest- ers from overhead. It would make a heck of a book cover. - Neill Mohammad can be reached at neilla@umich.edu. 4 4 tive future relationship. At the meeting, DPS Chief Greg O'Dell explained that overall crime rates have declined 30 percent since last year, but aggra- vated assaults and robberies have increased. He also said that despite the string of sexual assaults this summer, the number of reported sexual assaults has decreased by 42 percent since last year. These statistics as well as dis- cussions of other types of crime such as arson, larceny and motor vehicle theft were dis- cussed at the meeting. Opening DPS meetings to the public will create transparency in law enforcement actions. Some University students have ques- tioned the safety of Ann Arbor as crime has become more apparent. The statistics provid- ed at the meeting paint a realistic picture of crime on campus, and this knowledge allows students to react effectively to and understand ,the incidents. Though the meeting proved to be success- ful, the time and date likely caused a low attendance rate. Many students have morn- ing classes, so holding the meeting at 8:30 a.m. is not the best way to encourage attendance. The first meeting was also held the Tuesday before Thanksgiving when many students had already left campus. With only two stu- dents ttendinglthe first meeting, thelevel of student involvement is not ideal. In the future, DPS should schedule the meetings at a more convenient time for students. DPS plans to continue hosting public meet- ings, but it's not only DPS's responsibility to make these meetings effective. Students need to attend the meetings and actively partici- pate in discussions. By asking questions and engaging in conversation, University students will become involved in safety issues on and near campus. Students need to learn how to remain safe, respond to crime alerts and seek help if needed. The public crime meetings are a beneficial way to build a relationship between students and law enforcement officers. Future meet- ings will encourage students to take an active role in creating a safe environment on and around campus. Students must take the initiative to attend the DPS meetings and contribute ideas for the way officers respond to and addresses crime. Creating a safe environment on cam- pus is an effort that requires students and police officers to work together. Student attendance at DPS meetings can help form a cooperative relationship with police officials that can help foster a safe campus environ- ment in the future. I I -.-h e The Complete Spectrum: Chris Dyer discusses the struggle of transgender people to be properly identified by the state. po im IlGo to michigandaily.com/blogs/The Podium EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: Aida Ali, Michelle DeWitt, Ashley Griesshammer, Nirbhay Jain, Jesse Klein, Patrick Maillet, Erika Mayer, Harsha Nahata, Emily Orley, Teddy Papes, Timothy Rabb, Vanessa Rychlinski, Caroline Syms, Seth Soderborg, Andrew Weiner EMILY GREENBERG AND ARIELLE FLEISHER I Protect students around A2 The University's Department of Public Safety opened its weekly crime meeting to the general public this past Tuesday in order to promote transparency and allow commu- nity members to raise their concerns regard- ing campus safety. We decided to attend this meeting due to a recent experience with assault - directly for one of us and indirectly for the other - that resulted in a broken nose, maxillary sinus fracture and a sudden sense of vulnerability. We wanted to know whythe University hadn't paid more attention to the incident by alerting other University stu- dents about the assault. It turns out that DPS deals solely with crimes that take place on campus property. If a student takes a single step off campus and becomes the victim of a crime, it is no longer the responsibility of the University to even so much as inform the student body as to what happened. DPS decides whether or not a crime alert will be sent out based on its own subjective analysis of the severity of the situation. We are misled to believe that crime alerts are sent out for all crimes that occur against University students, as several alerts have been sent out for crimes that have not occurred on campus property. The fact is, student security is not an on- or off-campus issue. More than half of Uni- versity students live off campus. University students study off campus, they eat and drink off campus and they live off campus - their world does not end where the physical cam- pus ends. The campus police exist to protect students, so we are asking them to protect students by informing students. If the University Police do not have the capacity to alert students of crimes that are occurring to students off campus, this needs to be clearly stated, and students need to be aware that they are not receiving the full story. DPS should at least keep statistics of crimes that happen to students in the Ann Arbor area and send this data to students on a regular basis. As is, the current system provides the false impression that students are being informed of incidents, and this lack of information pro- motes a false sense of security. The Univer- sity needs to be honest with students about the rates of crime in order to increase aware- ness and empower students to push for poli- cies that will make Ann Arbor as a whole a safer place to live. There is no reason why cabs should not be available downtown late at night without a phone call to the cab com- pany and a long wait. There is no reason why the University cannot use its buses to estab- lish a taxi system of its own that will trans- port students to their homes from coffee shops or bars after a certain hour. The University has an obligation to care for its students and to look out for their safe- ty and well-being. This obligation certainly extends beyond the campus. We cannot change the state of safety on and off campus unless students are knowledgeable about the information they are and aren't being given. Here we thought that we were all Wolver- ines - it's news to us that when it comes to your safety, it matters where exactly you are a Wolverine. Emily Greenberg and Arielle Fleisher are graduate students in the School of Public Health. LEITEPS0 H E E D fR Protect professors who have the courage to stand up to authority TO THE DAILY: Dear The Michigan Daily, Congratulations onyour raisinginterestinand cover- age of the elections to the Department of Public Safety Oversight Committee, a topic that had fallen sadly into disregard for some years, to the detriment of both stu- dents and faculty. It is impeccable timing on your part that students have revitalized their interest in DPS over- sight just as University of California campuses - Berke- ley and, horrifically, Davis so far - facea mounting wave of university-sanctioned violent reaction to peaceful protests on public school campuses. It is important that those on the DPS Oversight Committee guard preemptively against such violent reactions on the part of the University's DPS, and you call upon administrators responsible for DPS to state unequivocally before things reach a boiling point here that such reactions will not be tolerated at the Univer- sity of Michigan. In a similarvein, please support faculty such as UC- Davis's Nathan Brown, the faculty organizer of the protest which was attacked, who wrote a courageous, personal open letter criticizing the role of Chancellor Learn about the rave scene before making judgements TO THE DAILY: I am writing in response to Leah Potkin's article "Don't 'rave' about drugs," as I feel that she may have some gross misconceptions in accordance with what the rave scene is all about. I would first like to state that she does a very good job in describing the dangers that accompany the usage of 'rave' drugs. As an active participant in the rave scene for almost two and a half years, I have wit- nessed far too many people end up in dangerous situ- ations because of their lack of judgment in relation to narcotic usage. Drug usage is a sad side effect of the scene, but it is far from the defining essence of what makes electronic dance music so popular with today's youth. Where I take exception with Potkin's piece is when she asserts that we, as members of the rave scene, feel it necessary to take illegal narcotics in order to "appreciate the music" that DJs play to "cater to their drugged-out audiences." I feel comfortable speak- ing for the rave crew, which I am a part of, when I say that we have a great appreciation for the music sans rave drugs. Many of us, myself included, actively write about the music we listen to and the concerts we go to for music blogs and music publications. We love the music for the music, not because it's an excuse to "roll face." In fact, I'm listening to one of Avicii's newest SEND LETTERS TO: TOTHEDAILY@MICHIGANDAILY.COM Linda Katehi - former University of Michigan electri- cal engineering and computer science professor - in the pepper-spraying and clubbing of peaceful protest- ers on campus, and calling for her immediate resigna- tion as has the Board of the Davis Faculty Association. I say courageous because Brown is an untenured assis- tant English professor at UC-Davis, and it has woefully happened manytimes inthe pastthat criticswithoutthe protection of tenure have suffered reprisals - even to the point of dismissal at institutions of the caliber of UC- Davis - for actions of far less public declat. Just as with your timely position on DPS, I encourage you to getout in front by casting the spotlight on the case of Nathan Brown - lest athoughtful and passionate fac- ulty defender of the right to free expression on campus be sanctioned by an embarrassed administration which has lost the confidence of its student body and faculty. The University of Michigan American Association of University Professors is calling upon faculty every- where to maintain a vigil of protection around Brown in the name of academic freedom and the faculty's right to share in university governance. We would appreciate any help we can get from students who agree with the need to protect faculty leaders like Brown. Dan Burns Interim president of the University of Michigan chapter ofthe American Association of University Professors songs as I write this letter. It is not rave drugs that are "taking center stage" at concerts around the world. It is the feeling of love, togetherness and pure happiness that accompanies a four-hour dance party. EDM is aboutgoing with your best friends to a place where you can listen to music that makes you happy and jump around likea lunatic for hours on end free of judgment. Concerts are settings in which thousands of people really do "dance like no one is watching," and some of the best moments of my life have been realized at the very raves Potkin presents as breeding grounds for drug addiction. Merriam-Webster defines ecstasy as "a state of overwhelmingemotion; especially: rapturous delight." To me that definition represents every time I get to go see a show with the people who appreciate the music as much as I do. I have never left a rave without a smile on my face, and I've never left one in an ambulance like many students do at fraternity parties, house parties or one of the many bars on campus. The rave scene has its abusers, but so does the alcohol scene, and alcohol is far more prevalent on campus than raving ever will be. I, in no way, condone the usage of rave drugs, but before trashing the entire EDM scene as a public dan- ger, I wish Potkin would have asked those of us who actually partake in it regularly how we feel. Better yet, she should come rave with us and see for herself first- hand what it's all about - the more the merrier. We aren't all evil people, I swear. Russell Kretzschmar LSA senior FOLLOW DAILY OPINION ON TWITTER Keep up with columnists, read Daily editorials, view cartoons and join in the debate. Check out @michdailyoped to get updates on Daily opinion content throughout the day.