OT- In defense of Sparty and their problem with alcohol related arrests

Not reading all that

Cops unnecessarily harassing the wrong people in their relentless pursuit for troublemakers? Sirrah, I resent your tone and find your spurious accusations ignorant and frankly Communist.

Why do you hate freedom, restive neb?

I lived in East Lansing for four years and the police are certainly part of the problem.

I had a similar experience. About six friends and I were between bars and an officer stopped us. There was a report of a fight and he wanted to make sure it wasn't us (it wasn't). He asked (told) us to stick around. We were understanding and cooperative. We actually had a friendly conversation with this officer while he waited for backup.

While we were conversing, Chief Wiggum showed up like bat out of hell. Before assessing the nonviolent situation, he jumped out of the car and immediately said, "I just got new taser and I have no problem testing it out on you guys!" Wow. Thankfully, nothing escalated beyond a couple ill-advised smart-ass remarks on behalf of my friends.

The point is, the ELPD does not have a good relationship with the students and they don't seem to making any attempts to improve the situation. This certainly does not excuse mindless assaults or destruction of property on behalf of students but you'd expect middle-aged, "professional" officers to conduct themselves well - professionally.

It may not be all of ELPD, but only a few officers. I know that at my small school, there is one officer who has single-handedly arrested 5 people I know on individual occasions and harassed many more of them. He circles through the college areas, but makes his living circling the big freshman dorm stopping tons of kids. I think some officers can be Steven Segal fans that want to be like their idol, but like Super Unknown said, there can be fine cops as well.

for the summary at the end.

Not that I know much about the issue other than what's been presented here, but I don't doubt the premise for a minute. By hyping up the "riot problem," the ELPD help to secure a larger operating budget.

Seagal is actually a commissioned sheriff's deputy about 15 minutes away from me, right outside New Orleans. I never speed through his areas.

While I do not disagree with the OP that the ELPD should bear a sizable portion of the blame for the tensions on campus, I think the problem goes deeper than power-tripping cops. Virtually every college town in America features tensions between the locals and the college students, and those tensions often boil over during student-police incidents. But when I was in EL during law school, the thing that struck me about MSU was how much pride they seemed to take in partying hard and generally acting like idiots. The battle cry was "Sparty on!", and you were as likely to hear that as people walked to the stadium on Saturday as you were when people were exciting the Landshark later that evening. Now, UM students are no saints themselves, but at MSU there remains a culture centered heavily around partying, drinking copious amounts of alcohol, and then seeing how far you can push everyone around you.

I was finishing up law school during Cedar Fest (the last major riot they had), and even leading up to it the general sentiment on campus was that the residents of the apartment complexes were preparing for an incident, and actually seemed excited about it. I know this will make me sound like a UM snob, but there seems to be a culture at MSU that cultivates a "me against the world" mentality, that they "work hard" so they are allowed to play hard, even if that means starting fights with anyone walking down the street. Most students don't buy into it, but there does seem to be more who do than on other campuses. So when the police show up, this aggression bubbles to the top and you get the front-page stories that have come to embody the MSU student body.

Hell, when UM played at MSU, my fiancee (now my wife) and I were walking from our apartment to the gym when we were accosted for wearing our UM apparel. Now, I'm not talking just words (though apparently wearing maize and blue implies that I both (a) enjoy performing coital with my mother and (b) enjoy receiving sexual penetration in the aft from men), but also errant cups and other debris thrown our way. My wife actually stopped wearing a UM shirt while running after 2 separate incidents of people throwing stuff/attacking her, including one in which a MSU student picked up an acorn and threw it at her as she ran down the street, staring her down the entire time.

Now, I have a great many friends who went to MSU and most of them never bought into this culture. And the police department definitely had a stick up its butt while I was there as it pertained to students. But I don't think the MSU students should get off on their role in these types of incidents.