The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, August 05, 1981, Page Page 5, Image 5
* EditorialTime
Despite what enthusiastic
Law Enforcement and
Qafotv nir<wfnr Pari Cfnlrac
K/MAVVJ *-**? VVVVA VUftl UVVIWO
says about the improvements
made with the
campus police department,
there is still a great deal of
rumbling under the
proverbial volcano ready to
pop.
We don't think morale has
gotten much better under the
few changes instituted by
Stokes although they're
probably all for the best.
What is most worrisome is
a that the system was thrust
^ upon the department with
little or no input from those
who have put in the most
time there.
There are probably at
least a dozen cops in the
department during the past
two years that knew the
answers to the problems
long ago and when they tried
to speak up, they thought
twice and remained silent.
The whole situation was
0k repressive and communication
had been
severed for years.
With the new changes, the
USC police have become
inwardly rebellious,
frustrated at not being able
to speak their minds to
supervisors who obviously
aren't taking their feeling
into consideration.
ALTHOUGH STOKES
^ should be commended for at
least trying to change the
image of the campus police,
he must realize that USC
cops still need to air their
grievances and frustrations
above to the top-line
management, not below to
students they feel are the
easiest prey for their
disenchantment.
For instance, the per
manent shift change has
many advantages and
disadvantages which should
have been examined in
cooperation with all the
department, not with just a
few. Disillusioned police
officers who are used to a
certain way of doing things
^ should be handled with kid
I. ,,
University o< South Car
; found?
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gloves. The rookies can
easily adapt. If Stokes trys to
wield power, he will make
his changes felt but the force
will crumble beneath him.
Promotion policy should
also be established quickly
and officers should know
where they stand. The
younger ones are going to
look to the top for advice and
concrete answers about their
future on the force. A wellwritten,
clearly defined
promotion policy may be
just the thing needed for the
retention of men and women
who would go elsewhere if
salary levels were comparable.
The implementation of
students to work with
campus police brings only
one Question to mind: whv
was it not instituted years
ago? On-the-job training
beats every other kind and
this plan is one of the best to
come along in quite a time.
New training programs
will also help keep men in
shape but the next biggest
drawback will be money. If
campus police doesn't get
the funding it needs for
decent salaries, the turnover
rate will proceed rapidly,
undermining the entire
structure of what is to be
accomplished.
riUVVL V H.K, I H L
MONEY issue is not near as
important as image, a major
problem in the campus
police system for years. As
long as students and
university personnel continue
to see USC cops as
nothing more than men who
can change flat tires and
lock up university buildings,
it would be useless to go any
further in assuming that
these police will be
respected at all.
Stokes should be checking
with USC public relations
constantly trying to come up
with some good ways of
making campus police more
visible throughout campus
by lecturing, conducting
workshops and visiting
classrooms. As students
3C0CK
olina, Columbia, S.C.
d 1908
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t Associated Tress. AH other material conlout
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re those, if signed, of the writer and, U un
column*. AS tetter* and column* must be
ne.
ard*, and column* *hould be limited to one
typed page*. letter* and column* mutt be
telephone number, mailing address, eta**
fudonym* arc unacceptable, but the writer'*
quett, H the drcum*taiice* warrant it.
d letter* lor *pace and *tyle, and we re*erve
on.
I Page Iditor, Gamecock, Drawer A, DSC,
mnoA t
" a* \
become more acquainted ^2* *
with these individuals as v 4jS* '
human beings, the better ^ they
can be understood as " f
law enforcers. .. . .
Let's pray to God that
incidents like the Bates West v f
shooting of two years ago *,
never happen again with an *
assurance that we're safe f
wherever we travel on this
rv n J i 1
uaui^ua. uui uuuiiucnce nas
been with Carol Stokes the f(
past six months while he's 1/ # ru ii<
been trying to restructure a ' L ' W I J n U J . .
rapidly faltering institution. l/r vv . A/ v v
These next few months will ** t / r //V ur r L Or
be immensely important to
all of USC and the future of CLO 5 L R T 0 G ? J hi E!
our security: we hope Stokes
will be up to the task.
movi^a* daam
The country of Mexico has become nothing more than it
has been in the past these days. A visit there is like living in
the past, mingling with people that are as wrought up in their
economic problems as we are.
During ten days in May, observations made become more
concrete now as the impact of a poor country gasping for
breath stand as a test of time.
The gray, chalky haze that permanently affixes itself
above Mexico City could be easily mistaken for the collective
gloom of hard-working people who walk the filthy cobblestone
streets as if they were preparing for their own
execution.
THEY FEIGN affection for their jobs, drinking themselves
into a stupor with potent alcohol that makes the limited
freedom they choose to enjoy seem that much greater.
Marii Phtte/Editor h'Cluef
"How do you like our country?" they would ask every day,
each one of them hoping to hear something good about the
land they had run out of good things to say by now. It was
probably a kind of reassurance that things weren't as bad as
the disgust and contempt which so easily flowed for the
government of President Jose Lopez Portillo.
Perhaps that is why tourists were treated like long-lost
relatives, being asked to join Mexican get-togethers in the
bars and most often, serving as the center of attention.
The American females that visited there those few days
were catered to with wild anticipation. The whistling was the
most mild of attempts to lure girls out with them and
telephone numbers were held out by the Mexican men to the
women in busses, restaurants and street corners.
Thank God For
To the Editor: that of the New York Daily
Thank God for New News, that eye-catching,
Yorkers! For years I have easy-reading (perfect for the
been an avid fan of that typical USC student)
great newspaper that only publication that boasts the
could come to print in the world's largest circulation of
Big Apple. But now it seems any news daily.
we have a little bit of New
York right here at USC. It was a bold and creative
move to change the nature of
What I am referring to, our student newspaper so
and what I have been ad- radically, but I think it's just
miring all summer long, is the kind of move that's
the Gamecock's new format, necessary to try to enAs
any New Yorker would courage USC's apathetic
know, the new format of the student body into becoming
Gamecock is tailored after more involved in the issues
,T\ .
\ :ON T ROLLERS
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j C
ile Of Despair
THE WOIYIFIN of that nrninfrv uioro horHIti n.,?^
?- ?.v.v J "VI v nuiuijr CVU OCCII,
probably in the shacks hidden on the hillsides and immersed
in dirt. The men walked the sidewalks, muttering in excited
spanish whenever they saw a touristy blonde or light-skinned
brunette.
And it became known that the way of life was to fight in the
cities, labor in the out-lying areas and sell worthless items in
front of the stores in Acapulco where the rich Americans
would walk by hurridly.
In Mexico City, the metropolitan subway could very well
ctanrl ac thn rfrnafoe Avnmv\1/\ ?
uiunu UJ mv 51 vaitoi VAaiu^ic m 1.11c UUJJI casing Illlllgd Ui lilt;
land. Simply, during the rush hours after work, thousands of
people appear calm waiting for the metro that will take them
home as they sweat from the steamy heat of underground
insulation.
THEN AS the subway squeals to a stop, the men and
women brace themselves The metro doors hiss open and each
person pounds against the other in a mad attempt to beat out
his neighbor for a place to stand , already-packed with
pressing bodies.
A white-haired old women starts to make her way out but it
seems her stop will be somewhere down the line as she is sent
mercilessly back into the middle of the crush of natives. The
last man to make it on does so by straining through a one-foot
opening between the metal doors.
Once inside, the faces grimace and suddenly it makes no
sense as to why this subway is the most important to risk
injury on. As the -Mexicans tell it, two separate trains are
used late at night to keep the men from molestine the women.
as they do during the day, utilizing their wandering hands in
different ways.
Given that they have the capacity for new sources of oil,
Mexicans talk proudly of their discovery these days. They
like Ronald Reagan but hate U.S. intervention in El
Salvador. They hate Americans for the most part but love the
barrels of money that are poured into the fictitious paradise
of Acapulco.
At times the people even tend to like themselves. During
the times when an American and Mexican can sit down after
many, many drinks, talking to each other in what they
perceive 10 oe eacn omer s language, the American can
faintly understand what the Mexican is saying. And what he
is saying is "help."
The Gamecock
and events that shaoe their dedicate*! ' fpw hnv#? ct?n
lives during their college managed to put out what has
careers. turned out to be a bang-up
style newspaper.
The staff of the Gamecock Now tha* we know what
this summer should really be ?an ^ done with just a few
given a pat on the back for imaginative people, if more
doing what turned out to be students were to voice their
an almost impossible task, ideas and opinions USC
that is putting the newspaper could turn the Gamecock
out all during the summer in"> a student newspaper to
months. While coping with b? admired and imitated by
shortages in manpower, college newspapers all
equipment and materials, throughout the U.S. Let's see
and most important a budget it happen ? get involved!
that has been slashed to BobSynnett,
pieces, the hard-working and USC graduate
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