Protect yourself
I am at a loss for words at the recent rape and sexual assault that occurred just off of the campus. Just about every week I get an e-mail containing another crime alert that details another crime against a student. Robberies, assaults and now sexual assaults occur frequently on and just off of this campus. My question to you is: why are you not protecting your students? Nothing has been done, and an additional day of inaction means that an additional student will fall victim to a crime. There is no excuse, and I am ashamed that the president of my university has done NOTHING about it.
If there is one thing I learned this summer, it is that I cannot rely on others (police, school administration) to protect yourself. During the summer months, I subleased a house right on Dickinson Avenue, the exact road on which the recent rape and sexual assaults occurred. Two times this summer someone broke into my house, and one of them assaulted my roommates. The police were called and did not show up until an hour later. The second break-in was quickly stopped by a simple action: my roommate pulled out his gun, and the criminal quickly fled our house.
Because you chose apathy and ignorance to deal with this problem, I WILL do something about it. On Sept. 11th, I started a College Park Chapter of the National Rifle Association. This will be an official student group and will be supported by the NRA. I will do everything in my power to see that mentally sound, safety-conscious students have access to as many firearms as they need to protect themselves since you choose not to.
L. CPL Sean O’Donnell HistorySeniorU.S. Marine Corps ReservePresident, National Rifle Association, College Park Chapter
Approving assault
I was disgusted by the story “Terps fans show intensity against rivals” from the Sept. 14 Diamondback, in which Jeff Amoros and Brian Kapur reported, in an entirely approving tone, on Terps fans verbally and physically assaulting West Virginia fans who had traveled to College Park for Thursday’s WVU-Maryland shootout. In the story, they reported on a fan tackling a Mountaineer supporter in the parking lot for “standing around all cocky”; on fans shouting multiple obscenities at visitors both in the parking lot and the stadium; and on fans throwing “shit” at guests, including “sausages and stuff.”
The problem is not that the journalists reported the events, it is that they clearly found these actions both amusing and positive. This is a disgusting attitude and The Diamondback should be embarrassed for having published the piece, especially considering that some of the actions described would certainly be considered assault under the law. As an alumnus of both WVU (Journalism, 1982) and Maryland (Journalism, 1996), I have looked forward to my two alma maters facing off every year. The idea that guests from one school I love would be treated in this way by supporters of the other is genuinely disgusting.
In a week when a racial attack on the campus hurt so many Terp students, it is doubly upsetting that the student paper would countenance and encourage behavior like this. It should be a goal of the university to foster civil conduct among students and that should include treating fans who come to Byrd Stadium for a Terrapins game with a reasonable amount of respect. The “Golden Rule” should still apply, even in the 21st century, and The Diamondback should apologize for cheering fans’ bad behavior.
Gary Clites AlumnusJournalism
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