I think that they should not, though I have an exceedingly personal, non-analytical reason for this stance. I've almost been shot (and, presumably, killed) by a campus security cop.
It was about 20 years ago at the University of South Florida. A friend of ours was a student in the College of Engineering, and knew that the engineering building was open 24 hours. It was an ideal place to play Laser Tag at night, and we'd done so a few times without incident. Our procedure was to go through the building and give anyone there (there was usually a prof or two working late) a heads-up that we were there and let them know what we were doing. We never had any issues or complaints.
We'd been played for a few hours, and at one point I was sitting on the floor of a hallway, taking apart my malfunctioning laser tag gun to try to get it working again. One of my friends was standing near me. I was engrossed in what I was doing until I heard someone yell "Freeze!" I looked up and two cops were standing there with guns pointed at us. The one pointing her gun at me was clearly terrified and visibly shaking while pointing a loaded gun at me.
They shook us up a bit (they didn't beat us or anything like that, but their physical handling of us clearly fit well within the legal definition of battery), rounded us all up (including femetal, who had tagged along but spent the evening quietly reading a book) and gave those of us who weren't students at the time trespassing warnings.
They later said that someone had called and claimed that "terrorists were doing maneuvers in the building." (I shudder to think what would've happened if this had taken place post-9/11.) They also accused us of vandalism, which was a blatant fabrication.
Needless to say we never went back. I take no issue with them kicking us out or issuing trespassing warnings. I can even overlook the absurdity of mistaking our Laser Tag equipment for anything even vaguely realistic (at close range and under excellent lighting conditions). However, the cop that drew down on me was clearly panicing, and represented the only genuine threat to anybody there. In my clearly biased opinion, anyone not sufficiently in control of their faculties to hold a loaded firearm steadily while pointing it at my head either shouldn't have a firearm in that scenario or should not have been there at all.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2009-04-13 04:38 am (UTC)It was about 20 years ago at the University of South Florida. A friend of ours was a student in the College of Engineering, and knew that the engineering building was open 24 hours. It was an ideal place to play Laser Tag at night, and we'd done so a few times without incident. Our procedure was to go through the building and give anyone there (there was usually a prof or two working late) a heads-up that we were there and let them know what we were doing. We never had any issues or complaints.
We'd been played for a few hours, and at one point I was sitting on the floor of a hallway, taking apart my malfunctioning laser tag gun to try to get it working again. One of my friends was standing near me. I was engrossed in what I was doing until I heard someone yell "Freeze!" I looked up and two cops were standing there with guns pointed at us. The one pointing her gun at me was clearly terrified and visibly shaking while pointing a loaded gun at me.
They shook us up a bit (they didn't beat us or anything like that, but their physical handling of us clearly fit well within the legal definition of battery), rounded us all up (including
They later said that someone had called and claimed that "terrorists were doing maneuvers in the building." (I shudder to think what would've happened if this had taken place post-9/11.) They also accused us of vandalism, which was a blatant fabrication.
Needless to say we never went back. I take no issue with them kicking us out or issuing trespassing warnings. I can even overlook the absurdity of mistaking our Laser Tag equipment for anything even vaguely realistic (at close range and under excellent lighting conditions). However, the cop that drew down on me was clearly panicing, and represented the only genuine threat to anybody there. In my clearly biased opinion, anyone not sufficiently in control of their faculties to hold a loaded firearm steadily while pointing it at my head either shouldn't have a firearm in that scenario or should not have been there at all.
Just my $.02.