Conflict between college students and
“townies” in small college communities has been a fact of life since the
beginning of academia. Ivory towers have
always interacted at some level with life on the street. In my college experience the friction often centered
on the bar scene and the local women as the born and bred alpha males sought to
defend their territory against preppy intruders. Unfortunately for both the City of Washington
and W&J, what happened on the early morning of October 5th was
much more sinister, with tragic results.
Two college students returning to their dorms
from an off campus bar at 2 a.m. A gang
of opportunistic young men walking the streets and looking for trouble. This perfect storm resulted in a
confrontation, with one of the students sustaining mortal head injuries.
While
it is certainly not prohibited to be on the streets in the early morning hours,
it is not the safest of places and arguably a bad choice for student athletes
to make. This of course does not excuse
the criminality of an apparent brutal robbery attempt and homicide.
I
for one hope that this incident does not evolve into a contest of finger
pointing or defensive posturing. While common sense and additional anti crime
measures are in order, over reaction is not. The College and City have made
noticeable progress in recent years on cooperative efforts to improve the
community. As horrible as this incident
was, violence should never be a reason for pull back. Both local government and the College need to
double down on positive efforts to work together for the common good.
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