Commend DUPD for doing a good job

In response to the Sept. 27 letter “Police response is unsatisfactory,” I feel that the sentiment that Duke Police officers “think that certain students, by drinking, partying or even by simply walking home at 10:15 on a Friday night, are somehow deserving of a crime committed against them” is not just simply untrue, but it is also unfair and insulting to the members of the DUPD.  I fail to see how the statement that students out late and drinking are “putting themselves in a position of danger” can be construed in any way to mean that they deserving of assault and/or rape.

The endemic feeling that DUPD officers are not doing everything within their power to protect the student body is a gross generalization and blatantly untrue.  The officers are attempting to perform a two-fold job—patrolling the streets for threats (do not fail to consider that they are not just working on the University campus, but also at Duke Hospital) and enforcing the administration’s policies. Thus the problem is not that police officers feel that students that have been drinking “deserve to have the entitlement of safety and security on campus taken away from them.”

That is simply not their attitude. The problem does indeed lie in the fact that there are too few police officers, too many things to be done and that it is absolutely impossible to prevent all instances of crime.

All told, I think the Duke Police officers are doing the best job that they can and should be commended for doing to. To insinuate that officers somehow revel in the crimes against students is false, patently offensive and altogether counterproductive.

William Pitt

Trinity ’07