University of Southern California –
Department of Public Safety (DPS) officials reported today that the official Fall Rush Week of 2006 was, on the whole, “Much Safer” than those of previous years.
“This week was almost completely free of violations both on campus and on the Greek Row,” Sgt. Rawlings told AwfullyNicepublications. “The problems that we’ve had in the past years with underage drinking in our jurisdiction seem to be a thing of the past.” Rawlings couldn’t comment further, due to a pressing call of duty at the NO BIKES checkpoint on Trusdale.
Students who were at SC last year may remember any number of issues during the first weeks of both fall and spring semesters, including (but certainly not limited to) police raids on houses, helicopter fly-bys, and unnecessary reports filed by rival houses to the IFC.
“Last year was a mess,” Junior Nick Craig told us. “It was beyond ridiculous. You couldn’t pop open a can of 40cent Natty Light without having the S.W.A.T. team kick down your front door. Most fraternities then took the logical step to solve this problem: moving their rush events further away from campus.”
Steps towards rush safety included such events as tailgates at the sparsely policed Los Angeles of California Angels of Anaheim baseball games, dinners at restaurants known to “look the other way” when it comes to drinking age, and trips to alumni houses well out of the jurisdiction of the DPS authorities.
“From a safety standpoint, it’s the best thing that could happen,” DPS Lt. Berkowitz concurred in an interview. “As long as the students are more than a mile and a half away from central campus, their incidents and activities no longer contribute to the [University] safety figures.” When asked to elaborate, Berkowitz went on:
“For instance, if a student is walking on 30th street with a blue or red cup, regardless of whether or not it has alcohol in it, that’s a violation. We are forced to give them a citation, and initiate a long and complicated process involving a judicial review board, tedious inquiries, and a mountain of paperwork that I certainly would rather not deal with. Now if a group of students decides to go to Venice Beach, get incredibly hammered, and maybe smoke a little “rock” before getting carried out to sea by the riptide – our hands our clean, and, as far as the university is concerned, the incident never really happened.”
A senior named Jeff, who declined to provide his last name or the name of his fraternity, shares many of the same sentiments as the DPS squad.
“On Thursday, for our last rush event before Blue Chip Dinner, we took the whole crew out to a vacant apartment in Malibu where one of our alums used to live. We drank a [expletive]-load of booze, and the balcony ended up collapsing while one of our rushees was doing a five minute keg stand. No one died thankfully, but we did have to send eight freshman to the ER. And to think, if that had happened on campus, our house would have been cited by DPS, and more than likely we would have been unjustly shutdown pending a long and drawn-out legal investigation. The effects might even have been permanent. It’s just so stupid to think that one little party-foul could cause so much unnecessary backlash from the community. That’s why we don’t have events near campus anymore. Plain and simple.”
With rush-season all but over, students are looking forward to things settling down for the football season.
“It’ll be great when this week is over,” Nick Craig said. “Then we can go back to giving liquor to freshman girls, drinking in public, and generally causing a ruckus. Thank God that DPS only really cares about “public safety” during this first week of the semester, otherwise college life would be pretty, pretty lame.
Lt. Berkowitz is looking forward to the end of the week too.
“I’ve got so many better things to do than monitor underage binge-drinking and potential rape. I have skateboard bans to enforce, crosswalk-violation tickets to give out, and a whole lot of cruising to do in my brand new squad car.”
