A security camera was vandalized somewhere on campus, so the school responded to this by sending out an email to everyone who lives on campus. This email was simple— someone was messing with the security cameras, and if that person wasn’t caught, everyone who lives in the building would be fined for the damages.
This announcement caught many students off guard. The email didn’t give out the information of which building was impacted, or what students would be getting charged.
“Unless a specific individual’s responsibility can be determined, ALL members of a living area will be charged for damages,” said HSU Housing & Residence Life. “The cost to repair, relocate, adjust and/or clean damaged cameras is $150 per incident and identified individuals will be adjudicated through the conduct process.”
Questions about how much individual students are going to be charged were left unanswered. Donyet King, the Senior Director of Housing & Residence Life says that the fine is regrettable but routine when it comes to vandalism cases.
According to Section V of the license agreement, “Damage or loss of common area furnishings, equipment and physical plant unless specifically assigned to individuals shall be equally divided among all members of the living group that have reasonable access to the common area.”
King stressed that faculty would prefer to charge students who were directly involved and are open to information from the public.
“It’s helpful if students report any suspicious behavior or share any information they have with us that so we can address the issue with the responsible person,” said King.
Several Cal Poly Humboldt students vented their frustrations with this arrangement on an Instagram page “HSU Confessions”. This page allows students to send in anonymous “confessions” which are then posted by the page’s creator for students to interact with. One post was a screenshot of the security camera email with the caption “Thanks guys…”
The comments were brimming with furious students.
“If these mf’s think they can force me to pay for repairs for something I had no hand in breaking, they better rethink, bc I am not afraid to contest this s***,” said one particularly upset student. A majority of the comments were thinking along similar lines. Students called into question why the school would come after student money instead of trying to solve the issues with the security that’s supposed to protect students.
“Shouldn’t you literally have them on camera messing with them? So either the cameras are s*** or they just want us to snitch. Either way they f****** suck,” said one irritated student.
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