Friday, Jan 10. Cowell College --A party has just broken up at Parrington dorm. Four students are smoking cigarettes on the stairwell balcony, two individuals of opposite sex are allegedly lying supine in the back of the dorm, and the last of the party guests are milling around the hallways. It's approximately 12:00 a.m.
Enter one kiosk guard, sufficiently curious about the goings on in the dorm that he exits his car, one police officer driving up, lights off, and one confused night proctor.
The proctor on duty that night relates a strange and somewhat unsettling account of the interaction, a dialogue riddled with subject-changes and inconsistencies. Unfortunately, both the officer and the guard adamantly refused to speak to the press about the incident.
"I saw the cops and asked what they were doing here," explains Blade, Cowell night proctor. The kiosk guard, Jose, replies, "I saw a man and a supine woman behind the dorm." Blade looks, finds nobody, and relates this to the officer who then answers that they walked away together.
Blade then asks what the problem is. "Neither of them answered, and then finally Jose says, 'I smelled marijuana.' He pointed about 500 feet away, to the third floor of the exterior stairwell at the opposite end of the dorm, indicating the source." After another short pause, he adds that he saw a pipe, and the three start towards the dorm.
Blade ascends the stairs to talk to the students, all of whom say they have no drugs and make no move to hide them upon seeing the police. He finds no evidence of intoxication. He walks down, explains this to the officer and kiosk guard, and the officer replies, "Pretty wild party, huh?" to which Blade replies that it was fully under control and ended early. Blade leaves.
About 45 minutes later, according to the students on the balcony, the police return and ascend the stairs to confront the students, who are obviously smoking commercial, machine-rolled cigarettes with filters. The officer demands to see the contents of the students' pockets and the students comply.
"He searched us real thoroughly," says Damon, one of the students present on the balcony that night. "He patted me down and even looked in the inner pockets of my jacket." This story differs from Police Chief Jan Tepper's account, in which the students voluntarily reach into their own pockets and extract the contents for the officer's review. No drugs or paraphenalia were found in the search.
Many questions are still unanswered about that night. How did the kiosk guard get close enough to the dorm to smell the marijuana? Did he have a reason to stop his car, get out, and investigate something? How could he have smelled marijuana on the third floor from the ground, especially given the distance of foot paths and roads from the area? Even if he did smell it, why did he not mention the marijuana to the proctor first, rather than mention a "supine" couple who had since left the area, both obviously on friendly terms? If he saw a pipe, why do the students who were present deny seeing anybody with a pipe, and why was none found in the search?
When I called Jose to request an interview and mentioned that I'd spoken to Chief Tepper, he became immediately nervous and said, "What did she say?" I started to answer with, "Well..." And he immediately interrupted, shouting into the phone, "WHAT DID SHE SAY!!" After I explained, he agreed to speak with me, but upon my arrival an hour later, he had changed his mind. "I'm not speaking with the press, if the department has anything to say in the matter, Jan [Tepper] will say it." Rodriguez likewise declined an interview.
The police certainly have an obligation to prevent and watch for illegal activities. It is fully within their rights to search a student for drugs, provided there is probable cause. However, unsolicited police presense in residential areas is frowned upon by residents and staff alike.
For the people of Cowell college, the issue goes far beyond whether or not the search itself was questionable. According to John Mills, Turner preceptor and relief proctor, "This type of incident is new to me. I've never seen a kiosk guard or the campus police at this college without a stated purpose for being here. When they come, they either notify us before entering the residential areas, or it's at the request of the college staff. We've always had an unwritten agreement with the police that they don't come here without an invitation."
Janice Crooks, Cowell CAO, said, "All of the residential staff expressed concern that the police had come to the college uninvited. We try to handle things informally, without the police, until a situation reaches a certain point. I don't think we reached that point [at the Parrington party.] I think Jan [Tepper] got that message when I called her with the staff's concerns."
Chief Tepper did in fact review the radio transmissions from that evening and determined that Rodriguez was summoned by the kiosk guard. She also contradicted the residential staff's notion of an "unwritten agreement." "Officers patrol the colleges on foot regularly. We are police officers, and we can't turn a blind eye to alcohol and drug abuse."
In addition, she emphasized the importance of integrating officers into the community so that students feel comfortable with them. But, as one anonymous source said, "Sneaking around the back of the dorm sniffing for pot smoke doesn't sound like much of a 'community effort' to me. Where are they when there's no party, when people are just out in the quad studying?"
And even though Tepper denied any change in attitudes or policy regarding alcohol and drug enforcement, many of the staff members at Cowell see the Parrington incident as an ill omen; a sign that the days of Cowell college's traditional method of informal disciplinary resolution are coming to an end.