Last winter, an unmarked police car pulled out of the shadows under the Noyes El station one night during Finals Week, where a student was shooting a realistic-looking pellet gun at stop signs with several friends. Two Evanston police officers jumped out of the car, drew their weapons and shouted, “Drop the weapon!” and, “What are you, fucking retarded?”
The student, now a McCormick senior, says he immediately put the toy down and backed away with his hands up, yelling, “It’s a fake gun. It’s a fake gun!”
He was then arrested under Evanston code for possession of an air gun. The officers emptied his pockets and removed everything from his wallet, he says. (He did not get his belongings back until he was released.) They put him against the hood of one of the police cars that arrived as backup to pat him down. On the ride to the station, the student says the officer driving told him his life was over.
His situation isn’t all that rare. Asst. University Police Chief Daniel McAleer says during the school year, about one NU student is arrested each month, between the Northwestern and Evanston police departments. Although NU students most often get tickets for drinking alcohol in public and drinking underage, there’s no one offense that commonly gets NU students arrested, McAleer says. Students have been taken into custody for a variety of reasons, including pellet gun shooting and, just two weeks ago, marijuana possession.
When the NU police make an arrest, McAleer says officers handcuff and put the suspect in the back of a police car to take to their police station, located at 1819 Hinman Ave. The squad car’s backseat was not comfortable, the McCormick senior says. It consisted of a plastic bench with insufficient legroom for the 6-foot-tall student, which was made worse by having to lean forward because his hands were locked behind his back.
Once at Northwestern’s police station, someone takes the suspect’s picture and fingerprints. Then the suspect will have to wait, handcuffed to a secured bench in the station, because the university station does not have a lock-up.
Depending on the crime, offenders might be released on a promise to appear in court, and might have to pay a fine. If suspects are held in custody until they have a court hearing, they will be transported to the Evanston police station at 1454 Elmwood Ave., where there is a jail cell, which is furnished with a toilet.
When interacting with the police, it helps to be aware of your civil rights. Assistant professor Laura Beth Nielsen, who is the director of the NU Center for Legal Studies and a research professor at the American Bar Foundation, advises immediately establishing exactly what is happening. If you’re being detained, then you have to stay and talk with the officer. If not, you don’t have to answer anything. If an officer decides to arrest you, “it’s not the time to argue or resist,” McAleer says. “Whatever your arguments are, (they) need to be made in court.” Once you are being arrested – as in, they are putting on handcuffs and reading the Miranda rights – “Be completely silent and hire the best lawyer you can afford,” Nielsen says.
Scary as it might seem, an arrest on its own won’t necessarily amount to a major black mark. A person can have both an arrest record and conviction record, Nielsen says, but the circumstances under which someone can view or use them in court as evidence are different. Arrest records are much less significant than conviction records, and employers are unlikely to check your arrest record, even if they ask about it on an application.
For the Airsoft gun-toting McCormick student, the legal process was slow and frustrating. His conviction for breaking a city ordinance ended with a $25 fine and a $35 court supervision fee. He left to study abroad for Spring Quarter just a few days after the arrest but had to fly back from his Connecticut home during the summer to go to court in Evanston. A hold was also placed on his Caesar account until he met with Dean of Students Mary Desler during the same trip. The arrest hasn’t cost him any employment, but he recently had to list the arrest on a job application. He still needs to fill out more paperwork and owes another $9 fee to the court. “It’s been a pain,” he says. “It’s been a huge pain.”
