Ugh, Children

Last night I witnessed a brawl from my bedroom window. While there was nothing particularly interesting about the fighting itself, I must say I was alarmed and disappointed as to how it was handled. Besides being allowed to run on far too long at far too late an hour--i'm sorry, but ridiculous noise in a small housing court is unacceptable under any non-emergency circumstances at 4 am on a Tuesday--the measures taken by security to end this problem were dangerously insufficient to say the least.

The young man who was at the heart of the fighting, a skinny little rat of a kid who lives next door to me, was dangerous. He drove the heads of several kids into walls, used lighters to threaten and burn folks, kicked at least one male in the groin repeatedly, and continued hitting another chav around the head long after security had arrived and tried to settle things. He even audibly threatened the guards themselves. The kid was obviously angry and irrational, possibly just under the influence of alcohol but chances are on something a bit stronger, and was a threat to anyone within fifty feet of the court. Yet the security guards, after having asked the kids to return to their houses, simply left. They may have taken names but so what?

Kent University policy states that if you have a problem with your neighbors making noise, you should call them up and politely ask them to quiet down one or two times before calling security. You do not call the city police but let security call them if it comes to it. However, had I called next door and asked them politely to hush, chances are one of those nutjobs would have come over, thrown a rock through the window, climbed in, picked up a shard of the busted glass and stabbed me through the throat with it. The security guards did not actually approach the boy who was trying to crack skulls but let the other students try to restrain him. I'm sorry, but that's unacceptable.

A proper handling of someone who is persistently violent (this went on for over two hours, and security had to come over twice) requires calling the real police, having the asshole wrestled to the ground, kicked around a little, handcuffed, and dropped in a squad car to be taken to the station. Once there it is only proper to test the kid for illegal drug use, lock him up overnight, and make his mother come down from London to bail him out in the morning. Within a week the university would have him at least evicted if not expelled, and things would settle down again.

However, it looks like the kid may be getting off scot-free for this infraction. I can hear just about every word said through the walls of my house and at no point did i hear the boy being reprimanded, ticketed, or taken away. I'm sorry, but i think they're being a little too trusting. I don't care what they have to do to him so long as I can feel safe walking to my front door after the sun goes down (i.e. after 5 pm). With my current neighbor, however, i don't. I will be speaking to the reception desk for my housing development and informing them that unless they take measures to improve their security policy, i will be telling USC's study abroad office that I feel threatened. You better believe they'll talk and Kent could lose school participation and a good deal of money.

I don't want to see that happen--I like this school and Canterbury is a beautiful place to study--so I sincerely hope that something is being done about this and I won't encounter this sort of behaviour again.