Fashion Police Brutality

An incident at the University of Iowa this past April, sparked a discussion among co-workers and I about what are reasonable fears and/or precautions in this day and age. A brief recap of the incident is as follows...

A student attending a lecture on April 26, 2007 made the curious but, as far as I know, legal decision to wear a ski mask in class. Several other students were alarmed and at least one called 911. After the class ended the student that wore the ski mask was apprehended by campus police, questioned over a period of two hours, publicly identified in an e-mail to University faculty, staff, and students, and banned from campus for a period of five months. (Additional information here.)

While acknowledging that the horrific shootings at Virgina Tech were less than two weeks old at the time, I was among those arguing that it was ridiculous to detain someone for simply wearing a piece of clothing. Where was the crime? Where was the threat? Where was any hostile intent expressed? Shouldn't people have to actually do something bad to get in this much trouble? Am I hopelessly naive to ignore the need to "stay on the offense" (to borrow Bush's phrasing) against people who dress strangely in this day and age?

The argument predictably petered out without any consensus. However, it jogged my memory of a similar, more absurd, incident from the Spring of '06. Oh yes, I'm referring to the infamous Feds pounce on student dressed as ninja situation at the University of Georgia.


This story has so many bizarre angles! To wit:

1. The guy was attending a party SPECIFICALLY for ninjas and pirates. This has to have been one of the few occasions in human history where you would look suspicious if you WEREN’T dressed up as a ninja or pirate.

2. The event was sponsored by the United Methodist Student Group. Not exactly public enemy # 1.

3. Just by coincidence, there were a bunch of ATF agents in the area. If it wasn’t for bad luck?

4. The picture is truly worth a thousand words. It appears the guy in the sport coat driving his knee into the ninja’s back is reading Miranda rights from a card?! Meanwhile, the guy in the red shirt is on the phone trying to figure out what to do.

Here's my interpretation of the call...

“Headquarters?”
…
“Ya, this is Jim. I’m down in Athens at the training session.”
…
“It’s going pretty good.”
…
“Nope, no rain. Hey, we’ve kinda got a situation here. We just arrested a ninja.”
…
“No, no, a ninja. N-I-N-J-A Like a real life ninja.”
…
“Right here on campus.”
…
“Well, he looked around a corner.”
…
“Yep, and someone saw him running too.”
…
“No, not really sprinting. More like jogging.”
…
“No, nobody saw him carrying anything. Wait a sec. Hey Higgins, did you search him?”
…
“OK, I guess he’s just got a wallet. No, no throwing stars or anything.”
…
“Twelve bucks in cash and he’s a member of the Subway Sandwich Club.”
…
“How am I supposed to know? I’m telling you, he LOOKS like a ninja.”
…
“Running shoes, Adidas track pants, a black t-shirt, and two red bandannas.”
…
“Really?”
…
“No, no press here yet, but I think someone just took my picture.”