My campus had/has its own independent police force from the city. Stuff like minor possession and consumption were tickets for $$$.

Not sure what you mean… ticketing for infractions, parking violations and the like?

Don’t think we even had a campus PD at my schools – this was the ’80s. Security guards I remember, and when something major happened the city PD came to campus. Much different times I guess…

Yeah, but the campus police aren’t there for resolving disputes peaceably. They’re there for revenue enhancement.

When the officers arrived, they brought both the complaining party and noisy neighbors out into the hallway, first for separate cop-on-citizen chats, followed by a neighbor face-to-face talk arbitrated by one of the officers. Usually followed by a warning from the police to the noisy folks.

That stepped approach works well, and in all cases changed my relations with the neighbors in a somewhat positive way (they became more respectful of the noise level.)

Such incidents must occur hundreds of times per night in NYC. They’ve gotten very skilled at handling these situations. It’s small when compared with bank robbers and such, but really kinda cool that they’ve got a system that works.

Obviously not the case in Kent City, OH.

LEO: Knock-knock

Student: “Turn down the music! Put that stinky stuff away!”

Student: answers door

LEO: “Hi, we had a noise complaint. Are you guys having a party or something?”

Student: “Yeah, sorry officer. The music is off, and we’ll be quieter.”

LEO: “Okay. Don’t make me come back here again, otherwise I’ll have to cite you for excessive noise.”

Student: “Okay, thanks very much for the warning.”

Two things: if you believe you’ll ever be in a similar situation, watch the Flex Your Rights ‘BUSTED’ video to learn how to deal with cops in similar circumstances:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqMjMPlXzdA

Really a must-watch, for general learning about your rights when dealing with cops – parties, being pulled over in traffic, and terry stops.

Second, I see the handling of this particular situation as an ugly outgrowth of the creeping militarization of police departments. PD policies appear to support officers using force far more often than they once did, and to deny excessive force complaints (also due to municipal corporate liability avoidance.)

Confrontations are more likely today to get quickly escalated to use-of-force.

For a massive infusion of data and stories about this trend, read or skim the Cato Institute report ‘Overkill’ on the militarization of PDs-

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6476

Salient info: 84% of cities with a population of 50K or more now have SWAT teams. SWAT teams are no longer reserved for just hostage situations. They’re used for everything from serving white collar crime arrest warrants, to “resolving” domestic abuse situations.

Gone is the day of the truly professional Mr. Friendly Cop, who first uses words to attempt conflict resolution. Weapons and pain-compliance techniques are so much funner.

While I’ve no doubt that there are many cool cops out there (and some of them are in my town-NYC), but the rate of misconduct and use-of-force in the LEO population appears to be peaking since 9/11.

LOL. Whatever happened to them following the laws themselves?

I’d really like to know why these guys thought they could simply reach in and yank the person out, though.