Dear Editor:

The recent news of alleged police brutality at Club SIN is most unsettling, but not because of the allegations themselves. What is unsettling is seeing so many well-educated people putting on such enormous blinders to the reality of this situation.

The fact of the matter is that the police were called to Club SIN because this man was causing a disturbance and refused to leave the premises. Had he not been breaking the law in the first place, he would have likely had no dealings with the police that evening. He made a choice to break the law, and with that choice comes consequences. When the police arrived, he had another choice: either comply, or resist. He chose to resist. He gave the police no other option than to use force. There were neither tasers, nor police dogs, nor gaggles of armed men bludgeoning an innocent victim, like some would have you believe. It was a routine arrest that occurred as a result of one man’s disobedience to the law. It is unfortunate that an injury resulted, but remember: The police would not have had to use force at all if the young man had done what he was told to begin with.

I urge people to look at this situation with as little bias as possible. It is too easy to hurl blame at the “big, bad police.” What is much more difficult is standing up and saying that this is not an issue of race, respect, brutality, or abuse of power; it is rather an issue of accepting the consequences of one’s own actions.

Wendy Stearns junior studying sociology