Bangbangbangbang! “DPS!!!” I crane my neck to look at the clock. 1:03 a.m.

With a strong suspicion of the reason for this unexpected visit, I haul myself down my loft ladder, turn on the light and open my dorm room door a few inches.

“Yeah?” I say, speaking through a haze of sleep. Though I’m nearly blind without my contacts, I can make out a student security officer in the hall behind the man seeking my audience. He looks like a lion cub that’s just caught his first zebra but isn’t quite sure what’s supposed to happen next.

“Is your roommate here?” the officer asks.

“It’s a single. I don’t have a roommate.”

“Is this your sign?” he asks, gesturing to the large stop sign I have hanging on my door.

“Yes. Would you like to see a receipt?” I swing open the door and go back to my desk and get the receipt out. I bought the sign from a store in downtown St. Paul which sells old traffic signs, stoplights, parking meters and other stuff the city of St. Paul no longer wants.

I stand there in nothing but my boxers while the DPS officer, who probably wasn’t expecting me to produce such a document, hefts his flashlight up to take a look at what he’s just been handed.

He continues looking at it for quite some time, so I put some pants on and get my glasses. Eventually he asks to see my ID and uses his walkie-talkie to report who I am and that I’ve got a receipt. After reminding me two or three times that I’d better not put the sign anywhere where it might actually cause traffic to stop, he goes on his merry way, without apologizing for needlessly waking me up.

I’m telling you this story because I think it raises a number of interesting questions about the security and policies of DPS, the mission of which “is to protect and serve you.”

One thing of concern is how long it took for an officer to approach me on this matter. The large, metal, reflective, red octagon — specifically designed to be highly visible — has been on my door since spring break ended. If this is the sort of thing student security is supposed to report, why did it take them two weeks to do so? If you’ve never wondered about the personal integrity of student security officers, you probably ought to start.

The week I put the sign up, an RA on rounds came by and politely left a note about seeing a receipt, which I later showed to her. I figured she would note in the log that my possession of the sign was hunky-dory and that would be the end of it, but I guess SS officers don’t bother with looking at the residence staff logbooks.

The one thing I’d really like to know, though, is why, if they waited two weeks, they couldn’t wait another twelve hours? What is there about a stop sign hanging on a door that requires swift action at 1 a.m.? Doesn’t DPS have anything better to do than wake me up to explain something I’ve already justified?

The DPS bill of rights says people in my situation have the right to dignity and respect. Somehow, I don’t think standing around at 1 a.m. in nothing but my underwear qualifies as such.

I realize that to maintain a safe campus environment, DPS officers need privileges students don’t enjoy, but how far above the law is enough? Besides illegally parking trucks from time to time, DPS also apparently has the power to enter residence halls after they are locked — whether or not the public’s safety is involved (I guess those “entrance limited to residents and their guests” signs are there just to frighten away vagrants) — and to blatantly violate quiet hours by shouting loudly (thus causing a disturbance where one previously did not exist).

I had done absolutely nothing wrong in this situation. I was cooperative, but the officer asked for my ID anyway. Why did he do that? Is it policy to record the names of law-abiding people? Am I now on some “potential troublemaker” list? Is Big Brother watching me more closely now?

Of less concern than isolated incidents of DPS perhaps being a little too eager to catch people breaking the rules — which you can’t really hold against them — is what those rules are in the first place. I’m a bit curious as to what would have happened if I had not been able to show him a legitimate receipt. To the best of my knowledge, if a student cannot generate a receipt for an item like a stop sign, the item is confiscated.

Basically, if you can’t prove the sign was obtained legally, the assumption is made that it was obtained unlawfully. America may be known for “innocent until proven guilty,” but the Department of Public Safety seems to operate under a different premise. I believe DPS, if it does indeed enforce such a policy, is infringing upon the right to personal property as well as the right to due process. They are stealing property — property which poses zero threat to anyone — without any formal proceedings whatsoever.

The officer who visited me that night was simply responding to a call by a student security officer. It is, after all, the job of DPS officers to enforce the rules which enable us to live in a safe educational environment. Though it took them two weeks to come knocking at my door, I feel safe, because I know there are people constantly on the lookout for street signs and anything else threatening. So if a stop sign ever compromises your safety, know that DPS is there to help.

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Ben Byrne is a junior in graphic design from Minneapolis, Minn.