Gripes about cops
Laina Erde
Laina Erde
At 9 a.m. on the Friday that began my Spring Break, I was woken up by the furious sound of my door being beaten down and my doorbell screaming. In a dreamy fog, wearing only a T-shirt, I stumbled to the door of my Trembley Park apartment. Through my peephole I saw none other than the Lehigh Police. I could not even fathom why the police would be brutalizing my door and stealing the early morning sleep I had been enjoying. I opened the door with one hand and tried to pull down my shirt with the other.
As it turned out, the police thought that they were coming to the aid of helpless prisoners trapped in their own apartment. The reason they thought this was because of the sign in our window, meant to be a joke, which read “Send Help.”
So the Lehigh Police sent help. They sent it in the form of a door-banging, bell-ringing, mean man who took my sign and refused to tell me why.
The Lehigh Police were actually doing their job for the first time in recorded history, only it was like wearing sunglasses at night: unnecessary and just plain stupid.
I was very angry. Not only was I woken up two hours early and yelled at, but I was forced to hand over my property without reason. This might make anyone angry, but the reason I was angry is that I have asked the Lehigh Police for help in the past, and did not receive it.
Soon after several off-campus robberies in the fall, my roommates and I left an off-campus party hoping to Take a Ride Around Campus Safely with T.R.A.C.S. We were concerned about the risk of being approached by a bandit, so we went to nearest call box, pressed “HELP” and asked the police to send T.R.A.C.S. to the rescue. The man on the phone said that the vans were no longer in service, but that he would send someone to make sure we were OK.
We waited. We called again.
Soon, a police car pulled up and the driver asked us if we were OK. We said that we were waiting for T.R.A.C.S. and that we did not feel comfortable walking all the way home alone. The officer said, “This isn’t an escort service, you can’t just call us like a taxi.” Then he sped off, probably to break up some party on the Hill.
We asked the police to send help; they told us they would not. We put a sign up in our window; they came barging in when they were not welcome.
Even more dramatic was the incident reported in The Brown and White police blotter as, “Criminal Mischief — On Dec. 18, a window in Trembley Park was damaged. The incident is under investigation.” The window in question was not damaged. In fact, it was totally destroyed by jars of apple butter and a case of beer that were all thrown at our double-paned window in the middle of the night. My roommate walked into our apartment and saw what looked like ice chips covering every inch of our apartment. She realized it was glass and called the police.
The police asked what time the incident happened, who was around before, if they had been drinking and if there were any suspects.
Then the officers left the scene. No fingerprints, no assistance, no comfort; just the cold winter wind blowing through our new gaping hole.
The glass was in the cups in our cabinets, covering our couch and embedded in the carpet. If anyone had been sitting on the couch, he or she would have been seriously injured by the wall of glass. The incident is not under investigation — it was abandoned by the police. To this day I am still finding tiny bits of glass all over my apartment.
I suppose I haven’t had the best interactions with the Lehigh Police, but I would like to know, who has? Have they ever helped anyone in trouble or have they only stopped us from having fun, kept us from making jokes, and ticketed us for parking in our own parking lots?
The cherry on this hot fudge sundae came today when I picked up my precious sign from the police station. It was damaged, again with no explanation from the police. I could not even feign surprise.
As it turned out, the police thought that they were coming to the aid of helpless prisoners trapped in their own apartment. The reason they thought this was because of the sign in our window, meant to be a joke, which read “Send Help.”
So the Lehigh Police sent help. They sent it in the form of a door-banging, bell-ringing, mean man who took my sign and refused to tell me why.
The Lehigh Police were actually doing their job for the first time in recorded history, only it was like wearing sunglasses at night: unnecessary and just plain stupid.
I was very angry. Not only was I woken up two hours early and yelled at, but I was forced to hand over my property without reason. This might make anyone angry, but the reason I was angry is that I have asked the Lehigh Police for help in the past, and did not receive it.
Soon after several off-campus robberies in the fall, my roommates and I left an off-campus party hoping to Take a Ride Around Campus Safely with T.R.A.C.S. We were concerned about the risk of being approached by a bandit, so we went to nearest call box, pressed “HELP” and asked the police to send T.R.A.C.S. to the rescue. The man on the phone said that the vans were no longer in service, but that he would send someone to make sure we were OK.
We waited. We called again.
Soon, a police car pulled up and the driver asked us if we were OK. We said that we were waiting for T.R.A.C.S. and that we did not feel comfortable walking all the way home alone. The officer said, “This isn’t an escort service, you can’t just call us like a taxi.” Then he sped off, probably to break up some party on the Hill.
We asked the police to send help; they told us they would not. We put a sign up in our window; they came barging in when they were not welcome.
Even more dramatic was the incident reported in The Brown and White police blotter as, “Criminal Mischief — On Dec. 18, a window in Trembley Park was damaged. The incident is under investigation.” The window in question was not damaged. In fact, it was totally destroyed by jars of apple butter and a case of beer that were all thrown at our double-paned window in the middle of the night. My roommate walked into our apartment and saw what looked like ice chips covering every inch of our apartment. She realized it was glass and called the police.
The police asked what time the incident happened, who was around before, if they had been drinking and if there were any suspects.
Then the officers left the scene. No fingerprints, no assistance, no comfort; just the cold winter wind blowing through our new gaping hole.
The glass was in the cups in our cabinets, covering our couch and embedded in the carpet. If anyone had been sitting on the couch, he or she would have been seriously injured by the wall of glass. The incident is not under investigation — it was abandoned by the police. To this day I am still finding tiny bits of glass all over my apartment.
I suppose I haven’t had the best interactions with the Lehigh Police, but I would like to know, who has? Have they ever helped anyone in trouble or have they only stopped us from having fun, kept us from making jokes, and ticketed us for parking in our own parking lots?
The cherry on this hot fudge sundae came today when I picked up my precious sign from the police station. It was damaged, again with no explanation from the police. I could not even feign surprise.
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