The Lighter Side of the Campus Safety Blotter

Missing roommates? Fire alarms ringing at all hours? It’s all part of the lighter side.

Editor’s Note: This weekly piece highlights some of the more inane calls and incidents to which campus safety responds.

Becky Snider, ’09, Blotter Reporter

With all the “excitement” of midterms, you’d think the campus would be down right chaotic right about now. Think again. The halls of Rouzer have been deceptively quiet, which should raise a few alarms. Speaking of alarms, strange happenings have been occurring in Decker. On Friday, September 21 apparently an audible alarm started to sound within Decker, with no cause for sounding. This could be due to any number of things including a power surge or faulty readings. There is also the chance that the old system still being used in Decker decided to play a trick just for laughs.

Though I don’t think it’s a laughing matter when belongings go missing. Or in the case where roommates suddenly go missing one morning. It seems that a student was missed so much by their roommates that said roommates reported the student missing. Of course this could just be honest concern for a roommate—if a bit dramatic. The missing roommate was found on campus later in the morning. I guess those of us that have roommates shouldn’t go wandering off on campus randomly—it might cause sudden search parties to pop up on campus.

The sound of fire alarms going off at all hours of the day should be the normal occurrence to those who live in the PA and Garden Apartments. Though not caused by anything as simple as a power surge, the fire alarm that sounded just after 1 a.m. on September 29 was most likely quite the wake up call to those lucky enough to have been sleeping. The cause was supposedly due to “cooking.” More like burning if you ask me. First of all, what could you cook that would cause a fire alarm to go off? Second, what were they doing cooking at one in the morning anyway? You gotta eat I guess.

You also have to shake your head about some of the things that happen here. The average domestic argument has just been upgraded.

Apparently third parties who try to stop public domestic arguments must now be wary of being struck by cars of enraged girlfriends. That’s right ladies and gents; a DoCs officer was struck by a vehicle while attempting to stop a domestic argument.

If you’re looking for more incidents on campus involving vehicles, take a walk over to the Rouzer parking lot. You might just be witness to a golf cart backing into a parked car. Now you’d think that a golf cart is easy to drive especially in the “easily navigated” lot that is Rouzer.

I take that back.

And apparently so does the person who decided to damage a golf cart at the Golf Clubhouse. Retribution for the golf cart incident in the Rouzer parking lot? We’ll never know.

Now if you were expecting a long rant on the amount of underage alcohol possession, never fear. Though you might want to go take a look down in the Garden Apartments for that. Whiteford and Rouzer have been going on a suspicious dry spell lately. Well, we do still have half the semester left. Things are bound to happen.