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Sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

As you rightly point out, the student didn’t show ID and was told to leave. The guard left and returned “minutes later” with the school cops. Now, we don’t know how long “minutes later” is. However, in normal conversation that phrase carries the connotation of a short period of time. If it were 15 min or more, most people would not use the phrase “minutes later”. Most people would say “a quarter of an hour later”, “half an hour later” or some such phrase.

This brings us to the question of where the cops had to come from. Your assertion that they had to come from a donut shop somewhere is not an assertion made in any article I’ve seen. But we don’t know, so you may be right. But even if you are right about the donut shop we don’t know how close it was to the room, or how long it took them to get there.

We don’t know if they had to come from across campus or from the next room. We can create dueling fantasy scenarios, but yours and mine would differ. Neither would have any value in the discussion. But At the end of this post I’ll create one like you did.

You claim that just because the student was walking toward the door doesn’t mean he was leaving. That’s true, but the fact that he had packed up his back pack and was carrying it toward the door after being instructed to leave would make it reasonable to assume he was doing as instructed. It is especially reasonable for someone just arriving in the room to assume that.

You claim that the student didn’t leave immediately when told to do so by the guard. You also claim that he committed the crime of trespass by not leaving immediately.

Well, what is immediately? He can’t push a button and instantly transport himself and his belongings out of the building. Nor do you allow that walking toward the door with his belongings means he was leaving.

By that standard everyone who is ever told to leave a property commits a trespass with no way of avoiding the crime. If I tell you to leave my home and you gather your belongings and walk toward the door you commit a trespass. You didn’t leave immediately. By your standard everyone who was ever told to leave a property committed a crime unless they were close enough to a door or window to jump out of it. According to you, starting to leave doesn’t cure the crime.

It is my contention that we don’t know if he tried to leave in a REASONABLE amount of time. We don’t know if the guard is a reasonable man or if his idea of a reasonable amount of time agrees with yours or mine. Assuming that you are a reasonable man should we then condemn the guard if his definition of a reasonable amount of time differs from yours? If not, why hold the student to that standard? If not, we can’t assume he committed a trespass.

As I’ve said again and again, the incident needs to be investigated by an independent civilian review board. The accounts of the incident given by the cops’ differ from those given by the uninvolved witnesses. I submit to you that that fact alone should cause suspicion about the veracity of the cops’ story. Let’s have an independent investigation and punish anyone who committed a crime.

Now as promised here’s my fantasy scenario offered to compete with yours and so many others’ on this thread. I submit that it is at least as possible as the school’s cops having to come from some donut shop somewhere or any of the other fantasies offered.

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The student is working on an assignment and under the gun to finish it. The security guard interrupts him to ask for his ID. The student is perturbed and responds rudely. He refuses to show it. The guard tells him to get out. The student tells him he will when he’s finished. The guard goes for the cops.

The cops are in upstairs watching the captain of the cheerleaders retrieve a couple of books from an upper shelf when their radio says go downstairs to assist the security guard. Cop 1 turns to cop 2 and says, “I’ll bet you $100.00 it’s Barney.”

Cop 2 says, “No bet! He’s working downstairs tonight.” They walk down stairs and find Barney, the want-a-be SWAT cop, standing outside the room all agitated and ask him what’s wrong.

He tells them a student will not show his ID and will not leave. Cop 1 cuts his eyes at cop 2 who is rolling his eyes back and thinks “Gee maybe we should call SWAT and the National Guard.” Cop 2 is thinking, “We got called away before the cheerleader got her books for this?”

Barney is the security guard who calls for help more than all the other guards combined. Minor matters escalate whenever he’s around and the cops think he’s a wimp who shouldn’t even be a crossing guard. But they have to take care of his mess.

They walk in and Barney starts pointing toward a student who is walking toward the door, and sniveling in a high pitched voice, “There he is. There he is.” The cops want to throw up. All they want is for this to be over and to get away from Barney. Cop 1 walks over and grabs the student by the arm, really wishing he could stomp the shit out of Barney instead.

The student tells cop 1 to let him go in a rude tone. Cop 1 doesn’t need that crap after dealing with Barney and squeezes harder pushing the student toward the door. The student feels assaulted and starts calling for help. The cop pushes a little more and the student goes limp and really gets loud and obnoxious.

Now the cops are really pissed and tazer him. He falls down and they tazer him again. The bystanders are appalled and start calling for them to stop. Some of the witnesses ask for their badge numbers and the cops threaten to tazer them. More cops arrive and they take the student into custody.

At the office the cops write their report in a way that makes them look best while making the student look worst possible.

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