Police catch many students “watering” the Front Lawn

GCSU Public Safety regularly has to deal with drunken students trying to negatively contribute to campus irrigation.
Roles of Public Safety usually includes handling crimes, traffic infractions, drugs and alcohol related subjects, patrolling and whatever is necessary to make sure that GCSU students and faculty are safe. In addition, Public Safety personnel very often have to deal with another, less glorious matter – individuals, almost always students, urinating on or around GCSU’s campus.
“They just do it for no reason,” GCSU Public Safety Officer Brian English said.  “They do not care. I am not sure why.  They are just drunk.”
English said students have been caught urinating on bushes around campus every week.  Men are not the only culprits; female students have been caught in the act as well.
“You would be surprised to know the things that we see on Thursday, Friday or Saturday nights,” English said.
Cindy Potts, Public Safety’s administrative assistant, said at least 95 percent of the public urination cases involve students.
“There was a case of a student that urinated in a beer can and then poured it over one of our police officer’s cars,” Potts said. “That is just too much. They get intoxicated and then cannot think right.”
Since there are no specific citations for urinating in public, students that are caught committing the crime around campus are charged with disorderly conduct, public drunk, or underage possession of alcohol if the individual is an intoxicated minor.
Potts said so far this term, from Aug. 16 to Sept. 20, four out of the seven cases of disorderly conduct involved individuals urinating around campus. Also, three out of the four cases of public drunk and three out of the 20 cases of underage possession of alcohol involve human urination on the streets or bushes.
Gina Peavy, executive assistant to the vice president for Student Affairs, said students who commit such infractions must face the Student Judicial Board.
“Students arrested for public drunkenness will have to take the course Alcohol Education, pay a $25 fine on campus in addition to the larger fines with the Milledgeville Police Department,” Peavy said. “Sometimes they have to do community services or pay a more expansive fine, depending on the case.”
Most students are aware of this problem.  Sophomore business management major Juan Bialet cannot understand why these individuals cannot make it to a restroom.
“They just cannot think properly, as they are under the influence most of the time,” Bialet said.  “Instead of going to the restroom at home or at the bar, which is a simple procedure to do, they end up acting irresponsibly and doing it anywhere. Certainly these people are not contributing to our campus irrigation.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 29 2006. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry