Students Allege Inappropriate Police Behavior

By Broadside Asst. News Editor Rebecca Fulton
Photo by Broadside Photography Editor Courtney Erland

One of the two George Mason University students who agreed to an alternative punishment for attempting to steal textbooks is considering legal action against the school and Mason’s police for allegedly handling the situation inappropriately.

Nick and Jason, the students who have asked Broadside to withhold their last names, were assigned the punishment of wearing signs that reached from shoulders to knees and read:

“I stole from the bookstore and this is my punishment.”

The students have not filed a complaint with Mason police or with any other offices in the university by the time of publication despite the allegations reported to Broadside.

“I haven’t gotten a complaint from the students about anything the police officers did,” said Mason Chief of Police Michael Lynch. “They have not complained to anybody in the police department about anything the police officers said that I’m aware of. But when I do hear about it, of course I will take it seriously and investigate it.”

“I fully believe that the officers assumed that Jason and I are homosexuals, and that they tried to intimidate and exploit us,” Nick said.

Two police officers, Matthew Brudvig and Jack Osmancevic, responded to Smith’s call and first took the students’ information.

Then, according to Nick and Jason, the police officers began questioning the students about whether they were ever arrested or in trouble with the law, whether they liked attending college and who was paying for their education.

“They also asked us if we had ever been to jail, and we both said ‘no,’ and they said that they could take us to jail for this if we weren’t nice to them and that they would love us down there because we were younger boys,” Nick said, “insinuating that [people in prison] were going to rape… I forget the exact wording, but it was like, ‘they would love you guys down there, two pretty boys like yourselves.”

Broadside has made multiple attempts to contact the two police officers but did not receive a response by deadline.
According to Chief Lynch, the officers were permitted to comment but made a personal choice not to comment.

“If those kinds of exchanges occurred, that’s highly unusual and highly inappropriate for the police to do,” said Kent Willis, ACLU of Virginia executive director.
Willis explained that the police often use questionable means to influence people without breaking the law.

“Police often, even in the politest way, intimidate people into doing things they shouldn’t and that’s inappropriate but it’s not illegal,” Willis said.

Jack Smith, the bookstore’s general manager, suspected that Nick and Jason stole textbooks. Once Smith confronted the students about the textbooks, he held the students in an office and notified Mason police.

According to Nick and Jason, Smith asked the police officers to step outside of the room with him for a moment. When the entire party came back into the room where the two students were being held, Smith said that he would not prosecute them if they followed through with an alternative punishment that Smith created.

Nick completed three and a half hours of the alternative punishment before he was asked to leave.

“Jack explained that the dean of students had not been informed of this and that she was not kosher with it,” Nick said. “And she was apparently irate and that I was causing some kind of scandal and I had to leave and they would be in touch with me about further proceedings and whether or not it would be allowed to continue.”

Pam Patterson, the dean of students, must always be notified and approve of all alternative punishments implemented on Mason’s campus.

“To my knowledge, Smith made an independent decision to take action on the matter without consultation from anyone in the Office of Judicial Affairs,” Patterson said in an e-mail to Broadside.

According to University Press Secretary Dan Walsch, Patterson “had observed the student wearing sort of a sandwich board and then asked the police to intervene and then stop it. So, the police didn’t stop it without accepting instruction from the dean of students.”

According to Patterson and Smith, Patterson did not approve the alternative punishment.

“The understanding we have with [Smith] and Barnes & Noble is that when an incident occurs at the bookstore, as soon as the police are called, that’s an automatic notification to the dean of students because the police keep the dean up to speed,” Walsch said.

“We’ve never specified [a procedure for alternative punishments],” said Walsch.

“Our contract, as far as I know, says that we can prosecute people at our discretion,” Smith said. “There’s nothing in there that says anything about [alternative punishments].”

The contract between Barnes & Noble and the University concerning security incidents states: “Barnes & Noble will continue to comply with all campus policies relating to security incidents. Your bookstore manager will meet with the appropriate campus officials to determine how these policies should be applied to both members and nonmembers of the campus community.”

At the time of publication, both students have been contacted by the dean of students office, approximately one month after the incident occurred.

“There are many student issues that I would not be able to comment on due to privacy. The Dean of Students Office was not connected to the incident in the bookstore,” Patterson said in an e-mail to Broadside.

These proceedings follow an incident that occurred at the Johnson Center bookstore on Jan. 28 where the students say they were not handled properly by the bookstore or the Mason police where, according to the police blotter, they were “observed concealing merchandise in their back packs.”

Shoplifting laws vary from state to state; in the Code of Virginia, section 8.01-44.4 part F, shoplifting is defined as “...any one or more of the following acts committed by a person without the consent of the merchant and with the purpose or intent of appropriating merchandise to that person’s own or another’s use without payment, obtaining merchandise at less than its stated sales price, or otherwise depriving a merchant of all or any part of the value or use of merchandise... (ii) Concealing any merchandise...”

If prosecuted, the students would have been charged with one textbook each, priced at $163 and $180 respectively. This would give the students a possible misdemeanor of petit larceny. If the textbooks had reached $200 a piece, the theft could have been considered a felony.

Smith said that the Mason police were “fine with [the alternative punishment]” and the students said that the police were present in the room when Smith was explaining his idea for the alternative punishment. Nothing was ever put into writing, according to both students.

Smith and both students were informed by the Mason police officers that Smith had a year to the date of the crime to prosecute the students.

According to both students, the punishment was required to last for nine hours and Smith informed the students that they were to contact their teachers to let them know that they would be missing class. The first student, Nick, was to follow through with the punishment on Jan. 29 and the second student on the following day.

Willis also expressed that the conversation between the students and the police maybe have influenced the students to take the alternative punishment.

“It appears as if the students were almost blackmailed into doing this and that is inappropriate. The whole incident sounds as if it was handled in an entirely amateurish manner, but technically if the students were given a choice, I’m saying if you voluntarily choose to stand in front of the store with a sign or I’m going to ask that the police prosecute you, they’re making a choice,” Willis said.

No charges were filed at the time because a civil contract was made between Smith, Nick and Jason over the alternative punishment.

For university officials, the incident becomes complicated when examining the relationship between the university and the outside vendor, Barnes & Noble, which works with and on Mason’s campus.

“One of the problems is this would be extraordinarily unusual circumstances to happen not on a university,” Willis said. “That is, the idea of a private entity, such as the store owner, creating their own form of punishment. It’s extremely unusual... We’re dealing with this sort of hybrid situation, not a place in the private sector, it’s highly unusual.”

Smith explained that he chose the punishment to send a message to other shoplifters that says ‘yes we do catch shoplifters.’

“The idea behind that kind of punishment is... partly to punish the person who committed the crime but the other [part] is to send a broader message to society that you too may be punished if you commit a crime of some kind,” Willis said. “Apparently, the various studies of Criminal Justice system show that that sort of criminal punishment simply doesn’t work.”

“The question here is whether it’s voluntary or not and voluntary punishments of most kinds do not violate constitutional rights,” Willis said.

“This school does have an honor code and [theft] does violate the honor code,” Smith said.

In section II D, the Honor Code states:

“Taking or appropriating without the permission to do so, and with the intent to keep or to make use of wrongfully, property belonging to any member of the George Mason University community or any property located on the university campus. This includes misuse of university computer resources (see responsible use of Computing Policy under General Policies). This section is relevant only to academic work and related materials.”

Because of this incident, Nick plans on transferring schools, where he believes he will receive better treatment as a student.

“I do not plan on coming back after having everyone who comes into the JC between nine in the morning and 12:30, that is thousands of people, come in and see you with a giant bright sign saying, ‘Look what I did; I’m a criminal,’” Nick said.

According to Smith and Walsch, at least $20,000 worth of merchandise is stolen from the bookstore a semester. There are currently no cameras in the bookstore and no intent to install cameras.

“Cameras are not necessarily the best deterrent. If you have a smaller environment it’s probably a much better atmosphere to put a camera in. For instance the computer store uses a camera, but with the bookstore the problem with using that many cameras and that many screens is that I would need two to three people to sit there and watch the cameras all day,” Walsch said.

Walsch thinks that there are many other alternatives to cameras that may be more effective.

“There are other measures to deter shoplifting, we’re thinking about putting guards inside one of the hot spots in the bookstore during the beginning crush of the year: the elevator. Not closing the elevator off, but putting a guard in the elevator, I think that’s one of the better choices that we could do and the other [choice] would be to put a uniformed guard at the front of the store checking when the alarm goes off. That’s the other problem… these little tags that come in everything and anything, it’s a standard thing that sets off an alarm in any store,” Walsch said.

Barnes & Noble Headquarters was contacted multiple times but did not provide a comment by the time of publication.