Friday, 9:30 p.m.

A familiar scene, at least of late, unfolds before my eyes.

In the back window of the Wing-Davis-Wilks parking lot, I see two students with heavy-looking backpacks walking into the Davis circle when a cop suddenly appears and stops the kids. After a brief argument, the students’ wills are cleft by the axe of authority.

In a cacophonic symphony of aluminum, alcoholic beverages clatter down from the upturned backpacks, and the students are given a $90 alcohol violation-that is, if this is their first violation.

If they have been so unlucky as to encounter the cops before, this ticket results in a $190 fine. The grand prize is bestowed if they have had any beer to drink; they then win a glorious night in their own personalized cell in detox, and a hefty $599.

This is the second weekend in a row that I have seen, and heard, of the cops busting kids bringing in beer to the WDW dorms.

I am not justifying alcohol consumption through this column, but I am asserting the unimportance of it in light of more pressing campus issues.

With robberies in Tupper and Chittenden, alleged rapes and increased vandalism (namely, my car), it seems that the energies of the police force are being horribly abused.

“Doctor” Margolis, our loving father of a police chief, disagrees.

His reasoning for having officers on duty in the Davis Circle is that it will prevent people who don’t live there from entering.

Fair enough, this seems like a great idea-laudable in fact. Oh, wait-why are the cops only on duty there on the weekends, the prime days of alcohol consumption?

Is it no more possible for people to enter the buildings and commit crimes on the weekdays? Ah, “Doctor” Margolis, you are a wily one.

Keep those drinking tickets coming-the University enjoys the profit, and you look good by stopping the (important?) crime. Meanwhile, the system of values and ethics inherent in our institution is corroding into a heap of rust.

Arising from this pile of rust, like an ominous megalith, are the money-grubbing hands of bureaucracy.

And now to move on to the issue of individual rights as proposed through the backbone of our great nation, the Constitution. Various students, when relaying their encounters with the police, have told me that the police officers actually “made” them jump to see if there were any beverages within their backpacks.

Now, I am no politician, but I read Amendment IV of our Constitution (“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause . . .”) to mean that people have the right to the privacy of their belongings, except in the instance of probable cause.

Is the possession of a backpack reason for a person to be harassed by the cops?

I didn’t know that backpacks are that uncommon on college campuses.

I guess I’ve been somewhere else for the past year and a half. Students of the University of Vermont, as citizens of America, should be treated as such.

A quick guide for the student who is unsure about his/her rights:

1) You don’t have to let a cop enter your dorm room unless he sees something illegal.

2) Feel free to talk with officers in your hallway, with your door closed.

3) If an officer tells you that you have to jump, choose your expletives.