Victimization of students ignored
Dear Editors,
It is my sense that in the past three weeks the Kingston Police have made a conscious effort to establish an unusually strong presence in the Ghetto. This has included both an increase in patrols and an extraordinary number of fines handed out to students for various violations (mostly for open alcohol, but also jaywalking, noise and public intoxication). I appreciate that all these fines represent violations of the law, but it is my opinion that they are also an indication of a reallocation of resources by the Kingston Police. If so, I can only help but wonder if this is a fair distribution of police resources.
Understandably, Frosh Week and Homecoming events, among others, have been the cause of damage to private property, disturbances to people living near the Queen’s campus and the source of an ongoing conflict between the University and the local community. However, these are not the only problems plaguing this area of Kingston.
During Reading Week and Christmas holidays, Queen’s students are consistently the victims of theft. In one year, my house was robbed three times, my next door neighbour’s twice and my good friend’s once. We alone incurred losses of over $1,500, not enough to make a claim and too much to ignore. If one were to extrapolate this cost to the entire student population, it is my opinion that theft, in terms of costs and damages, is as much a problem as the problems faced by permanent residents.
That being said, the Kingston Police do comparatively little to prevent this victimization of students. If the Kingston Police made their presence felt while students were away in the same way that they are doing now, we could conceivably solve some of the theft problems faced by students. Why has such a primacy been placed on ensuring that students do not violate city by-laws when there are more pressing issues that need to be dealt with?
Anthony Harris
ArtSci ’07
Aberdeen not a tradition but a dangerous game
Dear Editors,
I’m sure by now the fallout has hit the front page of the Kingston Whig-Standard as well as CKWS. I am a police officer who worked with my colleagues on Saturday night. We were spat at, cursed at and had bottles launched at us just to name a few of the chaotic events your so-called [“tradition with a capital T”] party brought on.
The disgusting chain of events were kept at bay for the most part until an organized street rush at 10:34 p.m. left the police no choice but to retreat to a perimeter in an attempt to contain the melee.
We watched helplessly as a car was totalled and danced on top of. This car leaked fuel to the point [where] an attempt was made by the police and fire departments to enter the crowd to stop the fuel leak. Our worst fear of course [was that] many persons [would be] caught by an explosion.
We were driven back by a hailstorm of beer bottles thrown at us. We then offered assistance to the young people who staggered out of the crowd with wounds, bleeding from beer bottle strikes to their heads. We [continued] this way for hours.
I never write editorials. I have been a police officer here for 17 plus years. I felt helpless in the wake of your “Aberdeen Street Tradition.”
Your Vice-Principal, Mr. Hood, stood beside me as we gave him updates on our attempts. I commend him for his compassion to our efforts for he was truly embarrassed and humiliated by this “riot.”
To sit and point blame [right now] is pointless. I simply wish to tell the Journal what I saw and to have it reported. I thank God the young girl who was trapped under that car briefly got away safely.
I hope the two girls with the deep lacerations to their faces who we rendered aid to on William east of Aberdeen are OK. I’m sure the scars they will now have for life will serve as a reminder of how good a time your traditional Aberdeen street party was.
Sgt. Darren Keuhl
Kingston Police
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