If local police want respect, they need to deserve it

They said, "We've had a noise complaint, so we're shutting the party down." Then they proceeded to yell at the guests, "The party's over; get the f*** out!" Next they rode their horses up the driveway, continuing to yell at everyone and making the horses push people out of the way as they went. (And yes, you do make the horses push us with their heads, you're not fooling anyone by telling us they do that on their own.)

As everyone started to leave, I saw my friend talking to the older police officer who was still looking for a resident of the house. I heard the officer yelling and swearing at my friend and then he turned his horse around quickly, pushing my friend pretty hard and yelled, "Get the f*** out of here or you're going to jail."

Next I had another friend who was hosting the party tell me that the older police officer said, "If I have to come back here tonight, I'm gassing the s*** out of this place." I'm assuming he meant tear gas, like they used at Palmerfest last spring. These two officers and two more cars of officers that showed up after them, proceeded to overturn and throw my friends' tables, confiscate their keg tap, and come onto their porch looking inside their house, even though no one was there, and swear at all of us repeatedly until they left almost an hour later.

Later in the night, two or more different police officers came back to the house and a female officer told my friends that they heard someone who was walking down the street (not at our party) yell, "F*** the police" and that is why we had problems.

My friend asked, "So because someone who just happened to be walking near our house, yelled "F*** the police," the cops came to our party?" and the officer replied, "Yes."

There were even Athens Police parked outside my friends' house this morning while they were cleaning up. Why was that necessary? I understand when the police receive a noise complaint, they have to address it, but I didn't realize that meant violently breaking up our party, damaging my friends' property and verbally assaulting everyone there. Not to mention, all they said to the neighbors who were also having a party was, "Turn the music down."

Most importantly, we were not breaking any laws or doing anything wrong. No one was in the street. No one was destroying property. No one was out of hand.

I think we all know that the majority of police officers in this country abuse their authority, but that doesn't make it right. All these officers had to do was ask us to quiet down, or ask everyone to leave and we would have done it without any problems. I would have liked to get the officers' badge numbers but by the way they were threatening to arrest people who asked any questions whatsoever, I was afraid I would get the same response.

To be honest I was afraid to go anywhere because I thought they would stop me to interrogate me and if I didn't give them the answers they wanted to hear, they would threaten to arrest me like they had done to two of my friends. I have seen Athens Police officers be pretty rude before, but this instance really crossed a line, in my opinion.

If nothing else comes from writing this letter, I hope at least one Athens Police officer reads this because I would like to say, "You should be ashamed of yourselves. You have no right to talk to us like that. How do you expect the students at this school to respect you at all, when you don't do the same?" I know there is not one student at this school who has not experienced in one way or another, unnecessary aggression from the Athens Police. I hope more of them speak up the next time they do. Yes, all we can do is write a letter (since it seems like once the sun goes down in this city, you no longer have any rights if you are a student) but it's better than doing nothing. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Editor's note: Melissa Droske is an OU student who lives on Stewart Street.