APRIL FOOL’S: This article was published as part of The News-Letter’s annual April Fool’s edition, an attempt at adding some humor to a newspaper that is normally very serious about its reporting.
Since University President Ronald J. Daniels announced plans to create a private police force last March, his administration has been locked in a terse battle of wills with Students Against Private Police (SAPP). Yesterday, however, Daniels unleashed a masterstroke to upset negotiations with SAPP. In an institution-wide email, he announced that the Johns Hopkins Police Department (JHPD)’s headquarters would be in the soon-to-be-constructed student center.
He explained that the private police force and the student center had previously been completely unrelated ideas.
“It wasn’t like we realized that we created a shitstorm with the police force and needed a distraction, and fast,” Daniels said before our reporter could ask his first question. “No, it wasn’t like that at all.”
Since Daniels announced the student center earlier this month, however, it has dominated conversation on campus. Many students have wondered what the center will have to offer. A movie theater? A bowling alley? A food court with halfway decent options?
In keeping with Hopkins tradition, administrators ignored everything students had to say and instead confirmed that headquartering the JHPD in the student center is an all-or-nothing proposal.
“Are students really going to stand against a police force if it also means fighting their beloved student center?” Melissa Hyatt, vice president of security, said with a smug smirk. “Checkmate.”
Four minutes after yesterday’s announcement, SAPP tweeted out a statement affirming the group’s continued opposition to a private police force on campus.
“We will not even consider the possibility of a student center sharing space with a private police force,” the statement read. “It would obviously be better if that space was used for a game room, a froyo bar and a laser tag course.”
This morning, SAPP hosted an anti-police rally in the Mattin Center, which is slated to be destroyed before construction begins on a student center and JHPD headquarters at the site.
Demonstrators at the rally, which SAPP hosted with over a dozen other student activist groups, also called for free printing and better mental health services on campus, an end to the University’s contract with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the reinstitution of covered grades. It was the seventh rally these groups organized this month.
Hyatt walked past the rally on her way to a meeting at Student Life, which she said would count as a student interaction to hear feedback on the police force. When our reporter asked Hyatt to respond to the rally, she just laughed.
“We really value everything our students have to say,” she said through tears of laughter. “That’s why we were so careful to spend plenty of time talking with students and community members before announcing the creation of — excuse me, I mean the tentative plans to create a police force.”
Daniels shared a rough blueprint of the center, which he updated to include a space for the police force headquarters. A source close to the President who spoke anonymously for fear of endangering their employment said that Daniels had taken to calling it “the SAPP Memorial Student Center.” Daniels refused to confirm or deny the allegation.
Instead, he explained the angle that he and his PR team decided on — that headquartering the JHPD in the student center would prove to students how seriously the University takes their safety and well-being.
“Because of our unique position in a city like Baltimore, it’s in our enlightened self-interest to keep students as safe as possible, and that means making sure that the student center is under 24-hour guard,” Daniels said. “We also want to build a sense of shared community between students and officers. Deep inside, we’re all Blue Jays.”
