Police Should Pursue Crime, Not Noisy Students

Upon glancing at your front page on Nov. 3 and seeing the headline “Police to Up Quad Patrol” (news), I was filled with relief. The previous evening, a Harvard undergraduate had been mugged, beaten up, and robbed at gunpoint on the corner of Shepard and Garden streets, right outside the Quad. I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly Harvard and Cambridge’s community leaders had responded.

How mistaken I was. Upon reading the article more carefully, I quickly realized that the increased police patrols in the quad were not in fact intended to protect Harvard students going to and from the quad, but to protect the rest of the community from them! The Harvard students’ grave crime: making too much noise.

Am I the only one who thinks someone upstairs has a few screws loose in their head? Noise complaints are certainly a legitimate issue for the police to address on a case-by-case basis, but we are living in a serious city with serious problems, and the occasional party with loud music and a little bit of (gasp!) underage drinking is not one of them. The real people in need of a dose of sober reality are not undergraduates trying to enjoy the occasional weekend but the Cambridge community leaders who have somehow gotten it into their heads that preventing Harvard students from having a good time is more important than preventing them from getting mugged at gunpoint.