But you just stated that the students do not have the legal right to block the gates, i.e. doing something illegal. Therefore, they should have been arrested, no?

This is where the legal ramifications bog down…in the marsh of civil and criminal liability.

An ugly situation regardless.

I’m not pleased that the administration has been allowing them to block gates for so long, but the damage to Gallaudet’s image that would ensue from having them forcibly removed — as we saw this week — seems to outweigh the minor inconveniences of allowing students to block the gates. so far.

Here’s my fantasy of how I’d resolve the situation. I’d call in the National Guard. The soldiers will be wearing cotton flannel pajamas and bunny slippers. They’d have specially made gloves of lamb’s wool fleece. Each soldier will be accompanied by an RID-certified ASL interpreter ($80/hour, minimum 2 hour assignment). The protesting student will be wrapped in a sleeping bag with holes cut into it for his/her arms and hands, loaded onto a gurney, put in an ambulance, flown to Elko, Nevada, and taken to a hospital there for a full physical exam to make sure no injuries occurred. their pictures will be taken. Then the gates of Gallaudet will be closed, and no one can get in without having his/her picture ID scanned.

Yes, it is a matter of scale but it needs to be considered in the context of how the injury was sustained as well.

The protestor who lost the toenail was unquestionably actively resisting the efforts of DPS/PPD as they breached the gate.

Would the injury have occurred if DPS/PPD had not tried to breach the gate?

No.

Was it the protestors’ fault?

Paul Kelly was screaming his head off demanding that the protestors at the gate be arrested…and with good reason.

If the protestors had been arrested then the administration could argue that any injuries that resulted from DPS/PPD were due to the illegal activities of the protestors present at the gate and thus the university would not be liable.

However, since the protestors were not arrested, their actions are not considered illegal. The adminstration is now placed in the unenviable position of having to explain why protestors were injured as a result of DPS/PPD’s actions.

The press release purposely downplayed the severity of the injuries for obvious reasons. No sane college administrator would ever want to admit that their decisions resulted in serious injuries.

I smell lawsuits being filed this very moment. No wonder Paul Kelly screamed his head off; he probably had already calculated the cost of the settlements in his head right then and there.

And, to consider the degree of scale being discussed here…

Of course it doesn’t appease the mother or father who sees their son or daughter return from a war with an arm or a leg missing due to “combat action that resulted in casualties, none lethal” as reported.

But wouldn’t you be outraged to learn that your child was injured, regardless of severity, by university personnel during a protest geared to simply removing a president and that your child, according to the police on scene, had done nothing illegal at the time of injury?

Under any other circumstances, heads would roll.

It hurt. Bad.

But I got my toenail restored over time.

I have had my a bone inside my wrist broken.

It hurt. Bad.

But it healed fully.

Both injuries are not serious. It is a injury that needs to be treated, but not on an emergency basis. In fact, I never went to the ER for the toenail. I went to my doctor 3 weeks later for the broken wrist when personal treatment (wrist brace) fails to produce the expected results.

To a mother, an ear infection is a serious injury, but to a typical doctor, that, plus the above two situations are not.

It is a matter of scale.

Working Brain, How do you think readers feel when they see you minimizing the injuries, but this is so typical of Gally administrators. Fortunately both the local and national media took this very seriously. We live in America, not Iraqi and there is never an excuse for DPS, PPDs and rental cops to assault the students. They violated the laws and they will be held accountable as the students have already filed charges at the police department. They also violated the university staff conduct policy, too.