Thursday, October 11, 2007

An Incident at Dwight Bentel Hall

Image by Vanina Mutchnik:
Published in Spartan Daily 10/4/07

After the Spartan Daily decided not to run this story on Monday, I decided to run it online this week. Here it is.

On Sunday Morning, Dr. Michael Cheers, a photojournalism professor, and I, were quite surprised to have found a fire extinguisher lying on the ground on the second floor of Dwight Bentel Hall. The whole second floor of the building had been covered in a light, nauseating dust from the tampered device.

Further, the old darkroom on the first floor of DBH had been trashed by an unknown person or persons, with string tied to walls, computers, and chairs. Potato chips had been crumpled and thrown about, and the rooms thermostat had been smashed.

Dr. Cheers calls University Police, who arrived within ten minutes. No charges have been filed (to my knowledge) against any individuals, and DBH was cleaned before students arrived Monday morning.

Speculating as to the motive of the person or persons responsible soon followed. Was it drunk hooligans from homecoming week that decided to trespass over the weekend, or was it possibly related to the Daily's coverage of statue defacing? Or was it possibly related to their coverage of the incident at Hillel House last week, or the student who's car was keyed? Again, this was all speculation, but it made me wonder.