I am sorely disappointed in the findings of the Iowa Attorney General (“Charges won’t be brought against police for riot actions,” Feb. 7), but I am not the least bit surprised by them. It has been my experience, as well as what I have gathered from many other students, that the city of Ames, the Ames Police Department or even ISU administrators do not really seem to have the students interests in mind.

I wonder how many of them realize how much they have alienated the student population of Ames. We were treated as second-class citizens before, during and after the riot. Things have continued to go downhill from there.

The City Council passed absurd housing laws that benefit apartment contractors and severely hinder the options of students.

Iowa State cancelled Veishea because a handful of students actually broke something.

The police patted themselves on the back and even had an “independent” investigation, conducted by the same people that trained them in their riot techniques. Hmm … that couldn’t be a conflict of interest, could it?

No, of course not. It’s not like they’d have a vested interest in saying police used appropriate tactics.

Apparently they forgot to mention the fact that the destruction along Lincoln Way, as well as most of the destruction on Welch Avenue, didn’t occur until the police started getting Mace- and tear gas-happy. They certainly were effective crowd-control techniques.

Well, if you call firing tear gas blindly into the middle of crowds, only to have them return in larger numbers two minutes later and more pissed off effective crowd-control techniques. You’d also have to discount the numerous occasions when the police’s own tear gas was thrown back at them, and when they Maced each other out of incompetence on numerous occasions.

I suppose they were in the mode of Macing anything that moved (anyone there can tell you that’s pretty much how it went down), and tear gassing the ones they couldn’t reach with the Mace.

As usual, the students got screwed. Nothing new for us. I just hope these same people realize that you can’t ever win our respect or our support by using force.

Kurt Ferguson

Senior

Psychology