When you're arrested and charged with a crime, the usual complainant for the crime is the arresting police officer. If you're indicted, it's the District Attorney who takes the facts to the Grand Jury and the Grand Jury that indicts you. If there's a victim, and the victim wants to drop the charges, that request may or may not be honored by the DA, depending on the character of the offense, its severity and whether he can prove the case without the victim's cooperation.
For property crimes, like breaking and entering university property, the victim is not all that necessary to the prosecution, and it's fairly easy for the police or the DA to press charges without the university's cooperation. What the victim university thinks about the charges is of some weight, but is not -and should not be- dispositive.
In the case of MIT, they have their own police. Like all university police departments, they experience considerable tension between their police role and their in loco parentis role. At the end of the day, the university police chief answers to the university president (or chancellor or trustees, or whatever it is), so he'll do what the school wants to the extent he can.
In this case, he'll probably be able to drop the charges. I don't see DA Gerry Leone being a hard-liner here, though he'd be entirely within his rights to refuse to drop the charges just because the school wants him to. What's my point? I'm not sure. I chafe at the notion of the police pretending to be real police but dropping charges when the students' parents make a big enough stink.
I think if a school wants its own police force, it has to take the good with the bad. If the cops arrest a student, he's just another alleged criminal. Being arrested by your campus cops shouldn't be a get out jail free card. Am I wrong?
Breaking into a faculty lounge is not high on the list of MIT feats. The first rule since the days of Smoot and the MIT Balloon appearing at the 50 yd line during the Harvard - Yale game is, of course, "It's only successful if you don't get caught." No sympathy for those that do. Especially for something that shows such lack of imagination and skills. Their parents should ask for the money back. Obviously MIT standards are getting lax.
Posted by: Ted | February 24, 2007 at 01:25 PM
If they're going to crack down on this, they'll need to crack down on the orange tour too.
Lack of acceptance of the status quo is part of the DNA of the institute. Ignoring authority is what makes us creative engineers. At times that manifests itself as hacks, at time it manifests itself as innovation.
Posted by: Erik Schwartz | February 25, 2007 at 11:24 AM
This whole thing is a joke!
The MIT Police were doing their job and just got it shoved up the ga zoo with no vaseline!
Posted by: | March 05, 2007 at 08:29 PM