Demolition Derby on Civil Liberties

By Benjamin Wallace-Wells | Wednesday, October 15, 1997

The Hanover Police Department and Dartmouth College's Safety and Security force demolished two parked cars and strained relations between the College and local residents last weekend while in hot pursuit of two Dartmouth freshmen.

David Chalmers '01 and Luke Gonzales '01 rushed the field after the third quarter of the Dartmouth home opener, a 24-20 win against Cornell. After crossing the field to a spirited roar, Chalmers and Gonzales hurdled a short fence, exited the stadium through an open gate, and then split up. Reacting to the imminent threat to the community posed by Gonzales and Chalmers, the joint forces of Safety and Security and the Hanover Police initiated a chase.

The forces of law, however, apparently failed to account for either the narrowness of the street or the presence of stationary objects. The Hanover police car, which was chasing Chalmers, smashed into the front end of a parked car. 'It was just going too fast,' said Chalmers.

For their part, Safety and Security officers, who were chasing Gonzales in a van, severely damaged their front bumper after running into a pole. Gonzales was eventually cornered by a security detail in the alley between Leverone Field House and the Berry Gymnasium, handcuffed, and taken to the Hanover Police Station.

Chalmers managed to escape immediate capture, but was eventually fingered by Safety and Security after a brief investigation. He expects to be arrested by the Hanover Police whose investigation is ongoing.

In previous years, fieldrushers have been cornered by stadium security within the confines of Memorial Field. This year, however, the game was being broadcast on television across New England by Boston's Channel 9. A brutal capture of College students would have made interesting footage for the cameras, and proved embarrassing to the College.

Chalmers therefore found the security inside the stadium surprisingly light. 'As soon as we got out of the gate, we saw that none of the cops were chasing us, and we kind of thought we'd made it,' he said. 'We were standing there, high-fiving, and all of a sudden the cop cars came up.'

According to Safety and Security Officer Robert Young, several officers from both Safety and Security and local police departments were waiting outside the gates of Memorial Field, presumably preparing to capture potential fieldrushers.

The College operates in a state of aggravated awareness of fieldrushing; they beam announcements warning of its consequences over the Memorial Field loudspeakers and hire extra security personnel to deter and deal with fieldrushers. The inactivity of the officers inside the stadium, and the lingering presence of so many officers outside the stadium gates, combine to suggest that it was a conscious policy decision to detain fieldrushers outside Memorial Field, safely out of the view of the television cameras. The same evidence also suggests that had the College's security chiefs been willing to authorize an on-field capture, the whole incident might have been avoided.

The local community has not ignored the damaging intrusion of Dartmouth's security forces.

'The Hanover Police owe some sort of an apology to the community,' said longtime Hanover resident Ted Coos. 'I don't think such a chase is necessary at all.'

'The police were irresponsible in their pursuit of the fieldrushers,' said local filmaker Bob Drake. 'The importance of catching the offenders was not of a scope to warrant putting people's cars at risk.'

When asked to address the community relations implications of the crashes, Director of Safety and Security Bob McEwen and Hanover Police Chief Nick Giaccone refused to comment.

Perhaps the most serious question that has been raised by the chase has regarded the presence of the local police at the football game.

According to Safety and Security officer Robert Young, the College hires off-duty police officers from Hanover and other local communities to supplement Safety and Security's patrol of the games. Extra officers are apparently contracted when the threat of a fieldrush is posed.

The off-duty officers, however, do not present themselves or act as normal citizens hired as security. They drive police cars, wear police uniforms, and flash police badges. In addition, their office offers them the powers of arrest not bestowed upon Safety and Security Officers or other security guards. In effect, by hiring off-duty police officers, the College has bought itself the right to arrest its own students.

Claire Ebel, the Executive Director of the New Hampshire chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, thinks that such policy is illegal under New Hampshire state law.

'The Hanover Police cannot act on their own. It all depends on what powers Dartmouth, through their policy, has ceded to the Hanover Police Department,' she said. 'If a Dartmouth College student is attending a Dartmouth College game, it seems stretching the bounds of credibility to accuse the student of trespass. You could accuse him or her of breaking a College rule. But to charge them with a crime is going to be extremely difficult to prove. Trespass specifically suggests that the individual does not have the right to be there. The individual certainly has the right to be at the game. Rushing the field may be something that the school wants to eliminate, but it is not the same as criminal trespass.'

Questions of law and authority aside, however, Dave Chalmers and Luke Gonzales remain in a tenuous legal position. 'I think I'm going to draw three terms probation from the College, and will probably have to pay a fine,' Chalmers said. 'I'm also waiting for a call from the Hanover Police, and Luke and I are going to have to go to Court. I obviously didn't expect all this trouble, or this level of seriousness.'

Last year, the three freshmen who rushed the field (Nicole Dielo '00, Alex Schults '00, and Scott Snyder '00) paid fines of almost three hundred dollars and hefty legal fees in clearing the charges leveled against them.

For Chalmers, however, the incident is not without its rewards. 'Even though Luke and I are going to get in a lot of trouble because of this,' he said, 'I feel like I continued an important piece of Dartmouth tradition that would have died out without me.'

Demolition Derby on Civil Liberties

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