DPS Officers Invade an Apartment

This morning at 5 am two MU DPS officers entered an apartment in a university owned apartment complex. They did so because the door was ajar. Not because of loud noises, not because of any suspicious activity, but rather the door was ajar. In doing so they trespassed and committed a Class A misdemeanor according to Wisconsin State Statute 943.14 which states "Whoever intentionally enters the dwelling of another without the consent of some person lawfully upon the premises, under circumstances tending to create or provoke a breach of peace, is guilty of a Class A misdemeanor." The key here is that in entering the apartment and waking and then berating the occupants, the DPS officers clearly intended to wake people and breach the peace of the apartment. As such the officers committed a Class A Misdemeanor.

In addition the officers did not have a right, as agents of the owner of the property, to enter into the apartment under the terms of the lease, particularly Section 4.2(a) of the lease, which states that entering into the apartment is only allowable without prior written and/or verbal consent, if there is a health/safety emergency. Given that a door being ajar is not a clear sign of a safety emergency they, as agents of the owner, did not have the legal right to enter the apartment. Thereby, they not only committed a misdemeanor, but also violated the terms of the lease.

Once again DPS oversteps its bounds and violates the rights of multiple people on campus. In berating the students, they created a climate of fear within the apartment. No one would positively react to people in fake cop uniforms going into his apartment at 5 am, shining flashlights around, opening his bedroom door, and the proceeding to berate him for having an apartment door which was ajar. Hopefully this blatant assault on freedom will not go unpunished and the two officers who committed this crime will be reprimanded in order to guarantee that it never happens again.

In Financial News

For the curious out there MU's endowment in 2001 stood at $2 million. Today it stands at over $260 million. Before the financial crisis the endowment stood at over $330 million. For a supposedly Jesuit and Catholic institution, the radical increase in endowment is surprising, especially given that this money comes from the pockets of indebted students. Instead of increasing its tuition by about $1,000 a year, the university could do something like reroute endowment money to making tuition affordable. Back in the 1920's, when MU was run by Jesuits who believed in what they taught, it was cheaper to get a law degree at MU then at UW-Madison. Now days, there is no way that a student could achieve this, at least not without massive financial aid lowering MU's tuition cost. The absurd cost of $29,000 per year, puts most MU students well over $100,000 in debt before graduation, meaning that they are unable to start paying for things like a car or a house, until a decade after graduation. Given that the church teaches that people have a right to an education, and that charging excessive amounts for anything is a grave sin, MU is clearly flaunting Catholic teachings in favor of embracing a culture of greed which is promoted by the "leading" US educational institutions. Harvard has a large enough endowment for all of its students to attend for free, yet it still charges $40,000+ a year to attend. MU should separate itself from greedy schools like that, and instead cater to all people, instead of only to the wealthy.

DPS officers commit Class H felony

That's right, last night DPS officers responded to a shooting in the campus area. In doing so they apprehended and detained two suspects in the shooting. According to Wisconsin state statute 940.30 "Whoever confines or restrains another without that person's consent and with knowledge that he or she has no lawful authority to do so is guilty of a class H felony." That sounds exactly like what happened last night. Yet DPS brags about their response, as if it were some heroic act, rather than a felony. Sure people should respond when they physically see another person in trouble. DPS, should not, however, use video cameras to monitor the entirety of the campus area, and then show up and illegally imprison people. It's not their place, if they want to do that, then they should become cops. Moreover, the reaction of DPS, and their bragging about it fosters a culture on campus in which students feel that DPS has the right to respond this way. Students believe that they are being made safer because DPS officers ride around in their cars, with their faux police badges, and guns. The question is, wouldn't we be even safer if we hired Xe, formerly Blackwater Security, to patrol campus with tanks, helicopters, and assault rifles? The answer is, of course, but we would then be living in a self imposed police state. Freedom matters, and so does the law, which is why the DPS officers who responded last night should be arrested and charged with illegal imprisonment. Only through rejecting the oppression of DPS can we foster a culture of freedom and a true rule of law, for if some are exempt from following the law, then there is no true rule of law on campus.

I'm Back

After a long summer hiatus I am once again back at my job of monitoring what is happening at MU. I am also working on a new project, which I will hopefully finish this summer and the results of which will be posted on this blog. The project is to photograph and catalog the location of all DPS security cameras on campus and in the surrounding area. With this information everyone will be able to know for themselves exactly when they are being monitored. They won't just have to rely upon signs saying that they might be monitored, but rather have the ability to know exactly where to look when walking around campus.

I will also continue past crimes at the cafeterias in order to, hopefully, inspire others to take action against the horrifying food conditions. One fun story is that the outbreak of "rotavirus" around two years ago, was not actually rotavirus, but rather was due to undercooked french toast. This conclusion comes from interviews with those who were sick and did not live at Schroeder, meaning that they would not be exposed to the virus, but only ate at the cafeteria. These people, along with those who lived at Schroeder, attested to eating french toast on the same day. Both salmonella and rotavirus have similar symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, all of which were listed as symptoms by MU. The university, in covering its tracks, failed to account for those who became ill but did not live at Schroeder. In addition, since no one became seriously ill, all of those who were infected went only to student health services, which as a branch of the university, was able to publicly anounce that everyone tested positive for rotavirus, and not salmonella. In the future, everyone should think twice before eating food at the cafeterias, because you never know what could have infected the food.

And now for another type of post

I am now going to begin a series which will detail the horrific conditions of Marquette's cafeterias. Although I do have one other thing to quickly note. Did anyone else notice how there was a lot of grass seed laid down a few weeks ago? Well guess what, either all of that grew overnight, or MU laid down sod on top of the grass seed. According to some sources that I have, the cost of this yearly operation is $20,000-$30,000. It's good to know that our tuition money is being well spent.

In case no one else heard, this semester Straz tower had a second health inspection on top of their pathetic first one. And by pathetic I mean the health inspector did not check the temperature of the milk nor anything in the Grill/Pizza area. Yes, the grill and the pizza areas have been comined as part of a cost cutting measure. Why they need to cut costs is not clear, given that the cafeteria system brings in an estimated $5 million per semester. I came to this conclusion by multiplying the rough number fo students who have a meal plan, by a number between the lowest and middle level of meal plan options, given that those are the ones used by the most number of students who eat at cafeterias. During this second inspection, the pizza was discovered to be 90 degrees of temperature, a mere 30 degrees below what it should be, and the milk was 50 degrees, only 10 degrees above where it should be. Please note the sarcasm when describing the temperatures. These were dangerous temperatures, yet nothing was done until a second inspection was made. This inspection was done by an anonymous acquaintance of the Warrior Watcher. I will eventually post much more about the cafeteria system, and will also overview past crimes which occurred at them.

No DPS has not gotten me...yet

Sorry for the long absence. I, your friendly neighborhood Warrior Watcher, have been busy with classes and finals. But now all of that is done and I can get back to letting you know what is going on with the University. First of all, look through any back issues of the Marquette Tribune that you have for the last month or so, or just go to their website if you don't hoard back issues of the Tribune. The DPS reports have an interesting line in them, that being that DPS is now in its own words "detaining" suspects. As I am sure you are all aware, that is illegal for anyone to do for a non-citizen's arrest crime. Unfortunately the Tribune has not yet posted those reports online. However, when reading the articles I did note that none of the crimes which were committed were citizen's-arrest worthy. An example of another crime which DPS responded to which was not within their ability to do so, was an argument outside of the Dogg Haus on April 1. But our friendly neighborhood private security force with no respect for the law deemed it necessary to run over their and pretend like they were police. Here's a tip for all DPS officers, either become a cop, or stop acting like one.

Weekly DPS Criminal Report

Every week I will publish an analysis of the criminal activity committed by DPS as reported in the "DPS Reports" section in the Marquette Tribune. The first criminal action committed by DPS was on March 7 when they used surveillance cameras to track down a student who had committed vandalism. Since vandalism is a misdemeanor, and since DPS was not present at the scene of the crime it did not have the legal right to follow nor to detain the student. The next crime occurred on March 11, when DPS followed an individual who stole a car from a Marquette University parking lot. While DPS did have the legal right to detain the individual on Marquette University property, if the DPS officer saw the crime being committed. However, since the crime was observed through a video monitor, according to Circuit Court rulings in both Forgie-Buccioni vs. Hannaford Bros. and City of Everett v. Rhodes viewing criminal actions both on tape and live on video monitors does not constitute being present for the commission of a crime. As such, DPS was not present and its following of a suspect until it got a Mliwaukee Police officer to arrest the suspect, was an action which was outside of its legal bounds. On March 17 DPS stopped a car for driving through a red light, a municipal offense, then contacted MPD and had the driver arrested for OWI. While OWI is a serious enough offense to allow for citizens arrest in Wisconsin, DPS did not stop the driver for OWI, but rather for running a red light. Again DPS forgets its role as a private security force that has absolutely no legal jurisdiction and cannot under any circumstances act as a police force. A simple rule of thumb regarding DPS is that if an average citizen cannot act in any particular manner, then DPS cannot either. Since one cannot act as a one man police force, neither can DPS. Remember, do not fear DPS nor obey them, you are all free citizens and should never bow before private security forces and their supposed law enforcement actions.