WE (SHOULD ALL) STILL WANT ANSWERS

One Month After The Drug Raid, Questions, Doubts, And Rumors Still Remain

It has been almost four weeks since the "Great AU Drug Bust of 2002," as
the Eagle itself dubbed the incident in which more than twenty MPD officers
stormed the dorms, with their guns drawn, ransacked several dorm rooms, and
arrested 6 students ("We Want Answers," 4 March 2002). And almost four
weeks after this significant event, AU officials have failed to clarify the
university's involvement in the investigation, and have made little or no
effort to settle the many questions surrounding the drug raid. Perhaps this
failure on the part of university officials is due, in part, to the general
lack of visible student concern over the incident, but some members of the
university community still want answers, are concerned, and justifiably so.

From the very first statement released by AU--on the morning after the
raid--we have been provided with unclear, ambiguous information as to the
university's role in the raid, and in the one to two month undercover
investigations that preceded it. In this initial statement, we were told
that AU had "been supporting" and "working with" MPD "in their work to make
the campus a safer place for everyone." The Washington post reported that
AU had knowledge of the police investigation before the day of the raid. In
the school's second statement, for some reason not released until 3:10 p.m.
on the day after the raid, AU reiterated the message that the university
would "cooperate with police officials on these matters." Spokesmen for MPD
also made sure to stress the university's cooperation, and it was not until
the Saturday following the raid that reports that the entire investigation
had been initiated by university officials began to surface.

While supporting MPD, working with MPD, and cooperating with MPD are not
wholly inconsistent with initiating an MPD investigation, we should be
concerned about misinformation provided by the university regarding it's
possible complicity in allowing tactical-vice units to raid the dorms in
such an aggressive, coercive manner.

Indeed, if the university had actually initiated the investigation,
presumably because AU officials were concerned about the safety of the
campus community, then it is troubling that the school was less than
forthright about this fact. If the school was worried by drug use on
campus, and concerned for the safety of the students, we must wonder why
university officials attempted no other interventions before they
sanctioned the assault on the dorms.

We must wonder, also, why "all that" Ben Ladner knew after the raid was
"that there had been an investigation under way," as the Eagle quoted the
man-in-charge as saying.

Ultimately, there is no reason that the Great AU Drug Raid needed to occur.
The Eagle was right in pointing out that, because "there remains so many
unanswered questions that it is awfully difficult...to come to a conclusion
one way or the other on the whole affair." Perhaps that is precisely what
the university wants, for the AU community to be unable to come to an
informed conclusion, as this would explain the lack of answers provided by
university officials almost one whole month after the raid. We must
recognize, while remembering that some students were forced to suffer
through this highly traumatic experience and were not arrested, that the
same results could have been achieved by less violent, more justifiable
means. Given that this investigation, like all drug investigations as the
police work their way up the supply chain, is ongoing and continuing, it
would be imprudent to allow this incident to fade from our memories, to
allow the many significant questions that still remain to go unanswered.