Halloween, at its best, is a celebration; a chance for students to exercise creativity, blow off some post-midterm steam, and bear witness to what is recognized nationally as one of most popular parties in the country. But no event involving massive amounts of students, liquor and opportunity for illicit behavior can ever make a plausible claim as nothing but \wholesome fun."" As students of UW, we have witnessed wanton destruction of property, little regard for safety and careless actions primarily on our part over the last three years.
But that disappointment reached new heights after the events of this past Saturday. While the city of Madison, the mayor and indeed this very paper have condoned and even applauded the Madison Police Department's actions over the course of the weekend, the approval rings very hollow for those of us who actually witnessed those actions.
From the vantage point of a friend's apartment above State Street, I witnessed what I could have sworn was a scene straight out of ""1984"": An ominous and armed line of policemen clad in riot gear, converging upon students deploying pepper spray almost at will as they marched down the street. I witnessed students and officers alike doubled over in an amorphous combination of pain and shock as waves of pepper spray swept across State Street.
The apartment I was in erupted in hackneyed wheezing, forcing friends of mine into fits of tears.
Later, in an attempt to seek out answers and clarifications, I encountered a group of police officers as they held their line near the base of State Street. I pleaded with the officers to cease what had by that point become indiscriminate pepper spray blasts toward anyone and everyone who even motioned towards an officer.
Perhaps the most poignant example was a student who approached the same officer I was questioning, begging him to let him beyond the man-made barricade into his apartment on State Street. Noting that he had already been sprayed three times, the student politely asked the officer to let him by. His plea was met with an ultimatum of: ""You have till the count of three to back off."" Holding his hands up straight in the air and patiently asking the officer to reconsider, the student was bombarded with pepper spray in the face, and eventually doubled over in pain.
There is absolutely no excuse for this kind of behavior. There is no question that law enforcement must take action in dangerous situations, and that it must enforce the law. But we do not reside in a Draconian society like that of ""1984"". The mantra of ""to serve and protect"" does not authorize indiscriminate spraying of dangerous chemicals, or the outright denial of the most basic of civil liberties.
We as students bear the burden to act responsibly and to let the officers do their jobs when need be. But implicit in that promise is agreement that we will be protected in a manner consistent with rights and privileges that as citizens we are guaranteed. Those freedoms are only meaningful in times of threat, as periods of adversity cause us all to cherish those rights we so often take for granted.
Those freedoms were crushed on Saturday night beneath the boots of the Madison Police Department. Their actions were not legitimized by the type of threat that could warrant such a police state atmosphere, but by a bonfire begun by a particular group of students at a particular location on State Street. Justice could have been served if officers had quelled that excess and arrested those involved, without injuring both in person and in pride the thousands of students who had done no wrong.
We must be wary of such overarching measures, and we must seriously re-examine the methods the police are now employing. The goodwill and deference that events like last year's Mifflin Street Block Party created evaporated this weekend in a cloud of pepper spray, and has only served to heighten the always-present tension between the student body and law enforcement. Truth be told, there are no winners here, but the recognition must be made that the Madison Police Department directly and legitimately shares in the burden that once again turned Halloween from celebration to denigration.
Bob Probst is a senior majoring in political science and legal studies. He can be reached at opinion@dailycardinal.com.
