Sorry, but I have to break into the flow of the paper to give an update of what happened at my university over the past couple of days. It's a great example of the paranoia that's going about, with relation to terrorism.
At approximately 1:13 A.M. on Monday night, I was on Amazon Instant Video watching one of my shows when I received an email notification with the subject line: Rave Alert: Shelter in Place. I was surprised that I got a university email delivered to my private email account instead of my school email account, and I clicked on it. I read the email and found out that the school was on lockdown after a janitor spotted a man who looked to be carrying a weapon while asking for directions to the administrative building. But what I just gave you were details that were found out days later. In reality the email just said there was an armed suspect on campus and that everyone must "shelter in place" until further notice. It wasn't until about an hour and a half later at approximately 2:48 A.M. that the shelter in place was lifted.
That incident wasn't, to me, as much of a big deal, considering most people were either at home, off campus, or in their dorms on campus. It happened on a Monday night, so I doubt people were having parties at 1 A.M. on a Monday night—especially a Monday night the week before finals week.
We received more details at 4:20 A.M. An email from the office of the president notified us that at 10:31 P.M. the Department of Public Safety was notified that a custodial worker near one of the buildings at the edge of campus was approached by a "suspect with a weapon."
What was the weapon? This pencil, which I hold right now, can be a weapon. So can a bat or a guitar or anything. Words can be used as weapons against the mind and spirit. It wasn't clarified until a future email that the weapon the janitor thought he saw was a handgun.
Anyway, the janitor began to describe the appearance of the suspect to DPS. Now here comes the fun part. Usually, African Americans commit most gun violence in this area of D.C. It's sad to say, but most people expected the description of the suspect to match one of them. Over 99% of email notifications about on and off-campus crimes involve an African American suspect. In fact, I've never heard of a crime around my university that did not involve an African American suspect.
Except this one—but this one wasn't really a crime—it was more of a false alarm.
The suspect was described as a Middle Eastern male, within the age range of 19-20 years old, slim build, approximately six feet tall, wearing a black sports coat.
Did somebody say Middle Eastern?
At the mere utterance of a Middle Eastern suspect, guess what the police department of D.C. (MPD) called in? That's right—the Explosive Ordinance Unit! The EOU searched many of the buildings on campus for any signs of explosives and (not to my surprise) found none.
There are many flaws to this entire event that shows how ill prepared and ill mannered my university is, and probably even other universities too had this happened to them. For starters, the possible "altercation" between the janitor and the suspect occurred at 10:31 P.M. Yet students were not notified until over three hours later at 1:13 A.M. If there actually was a dangerous shooter on campus, we would've had to rely on the sound of the gunshots in order to realize that something bad was happening.
Secondly, it was 10:31 P.M. and our campus isn't exactly lit up correctly. The janitor thought he saw a handgun, but what if it was a phone case strapped to the man's belt? And, even if he was carrying a gun, isn't this what the gun nuts want? Don't they want everyone carrying handguns with them? Second Amendment right—right?
But no, it's only okay if a white person carries a handgun around, not a Muslim, or an Hispanic, and God forbid any more "black people" get a hold on them. This is ridiculous. The hypocrisy is livid amongst party politics.
Third, if there was a serious suspect on campus, (whom I remind you they still haven't caught) we didn't receive information of the man's description until 4:20 A.M., over six hours after the event had already happened. The man could've been catching a plane to Kansas before we became aware of what he looked like.
Overall many students, who feel "unsafe", have attacked the slow and ineffective response from the university. They see unharmed DPS as a flaw in the system. They want DPS, who usually shows up to stop raves and other underage drinking gatherings, to be armed with guns at a college campus. What if a student is smoking weed, legal in D.C but illegal on campus according to campus policy, and the student is defiant. Are they going to shoot him? Maybe they'll aim so perfect they'll shoot the joint from his hands—but I doubt that'll happen. Most of these guys weigh over 300 pounds and couldn't chase down a suspect with a car. God help us!
The next day there were no classes. The 'no classes' were planned before the event; it was a university holiday. So the students had plenty to talk about in their dorms. Many felt so unsafe after the lackluster event that they left home the week before finals week. They were willing to fail their semester after an event that turned out to be nothing but sheer fear.
But get this, I was walking from the cafeteria back to my dorm with my roommate when the alarms starting going off again the following night. It was like a military alarm signaling a Soviet air strike on our university campus. A blaring alarm echoed campus wide, and our campus is over 140 acres. Following the alarm, an announcement notified us of a possible shooter on campus and that everyone must seek shelter immediately.
My roommate and I were already near our dorm and we took our time walking. I recorded what was going on and got some people heckling from their dorms, "Run! Don't look back!" While they tried to mock the situation, it was apparent that people were full out sprinting to their dorms with bags on their back. It was 8:09 P.M. and my friend and I both got phone calls from a private number with a voicemail notifying us to seek shelter immediately—just in case the blaring alarm wasn't enough of a warning already.
As we passed by the fitness building all the lights shut off as if the shooter took out the power. People filed out of the majority glass building and made their way back to their dorms. As my roommate and I approached the stairs to our dorm outside the building, a couple of our suite mates were yelling for us to hurry it up. One was joking, the other wasn't. The minute we got upstairs, the one who was terrified ushered us in and boarded up the door with our couch after locking the door and closing the blinds to the windows. He then went into his room and locked the door.
I swear if any terrorist were to sit back and watch this event, they would cheer, share a drink, laugh, and conclude that they had won. They didn't even have to be here, but the association of terrorists to any event sparks so much fear it explodes into paranoia and people lock themselves away from society. They changed their routine, as some of the students had already done by going home in lieu of passing the semester. Furthermore, some professors were so scared to come on campus to teach, they canceled all classes for the rest of the semester and assigned a take-home final to be collected and delivered online.
Then the details started to slowly unfold at 9:55 P.M. A suspect was stopped who was believed to be the same person from the night before. Just stopping the suspect caused the entire university to shut down and hide in their holes. But wait, there's more. The man was actually a university student, since our campus has a decent amount of Saudi Arabian students and Muslims on campus. He showed the MPD his ID and he had every reason to be on campus because he was a student here—well I can't say he'll be a student here for long.
But then, out of left field, there were bomb threats made to blow up the library and the admissions building. Both didn't check out. I wonder if some person in Yemen was playing a phone prank on us. If he was, he got us good.
Before the stroke of twelve midnight, we received a message from the President, who convened his emergency council. Many people on the emergency council wanted to cancel classes on Wednesday, but the President and a simple majority vote elected to still have classes. However, to ease the minds of those who voted not to have classes, they delayed the start of classes for three hours. All classes from 8 A.M. to 11 A.M. were canceled (which sucked for me because my first class started at 11:10 A.M.).
The message also notified the community that the counseling department will be at the ready to guide those students who were so traumatized by the event that they couldn't go on with life without constantly leaving a trail of feces wherever they walked. My father was at 9/11. He worked in the damn building. He saw his coworkers one day and gone the next. That man didn't need any counseling—our city didn't need any counseling. Maybe New Yorkers are just tougher than other people across the nation. We mourned the losses, kept them in our hearts and our memorials, but carried on. We can't let these terrorists scare us. Yet, even now I go to New York and see that tough spirit dying. I see it in the police officers who carry assault rifles, dressed in armored gear, riding in the bullet proof armored vehicles, flying in the helicopters patrolling the skies, stationed as watchmen on top of buildings using binoculars to point out any suspicious characters to radio ground units to investigate....
Day by day I see a militarized police force taking the streets to keep us "safe." It's more like to keep us in line. I feel they intimidate me more than any terrorist can. Yet when you ask the people, they see the armed police officers and conclude that they are safe. I sure do hope one of them doesn't lose their mind. They have a lot of weapons that can deal a ton of damage.
I'll probably have to edit this part down a bit to try to incorporate this event into the final paper, but as of now, it'll remain here until I finish up my first draft. Anyhow, let's get back on track.