A loud knock has never created such an uproar in Newark.
Senior Adam Sidor heard it on a chilly Friday night in October, three days before Halloween.
Sidor was visiting friends in their home on West Delaware Avenue. There was no party, he said, just 15 people hanging out and listening to music. A half hour after arriving, Sidor was standing near the front door talking to a friend when he heard the loud knock.
He opened the door and was greeted with a flashlight in his face. "Do you live here?" asked a Newark Police officer.
"No," Sidor said.
"Well give me your ID so I'll know you will come back, and I want you to get everyone that lives in this house out here right now," the officer demanded.
"What's the problem?" Sidor asked.
"Just get everyone that lives here right now," the officer responded.
"OK, sir," Sidor said. "I'm just going to close the door and I will be back with the people who live here."
"Not with my foot here you aren't."
A bit confused, Sidor asked if that was legal.
The officer's response? "Go get people now."
When Sidor returned with the tenants, the officer told them there was a call for a noise complaint. Sidor asked who called, but the officer said, "It doesn't matter, the music I'm hearing right now is indication of a party."
"The music is coming from one of the resident's personal computers in his bedroom," Sidor said. "Why is this trouble tonight instead of every other night when he plays his music at this volume?"
"Shut up!" the officer interrupted. "I am sick of hearing rom you; all you are doing is causing trouble. Just let me do what I have to do."
Sidor began explaining to the officer that he had met with police that afternoon to understand the new zero-tolerance policy, which links the recent increase in violence with parties.
The officer did not let him finish. He handed back Sidor's license and told him to "Get the hell out of here." Sidor got in his car and left, along with the other guests, confused and enraged.
"At the time of the unfortunate incident with the officer, there was no party," he said later in an interview. "This type of environment is obviously not the place that a violent incident will likely occur. Not allowing people the right to assemble and listen to music just because unwanted guests might show up is not right, lawful, moral or fair in any way whatsoever."
Sidor said he understands the new policy is obviously designed to protect the safety of students. But, like many others, he thinks the policy goes too far if the officer's behavior that evening was any indication of how it will work.
Behind zero-tolerance
On Oct. 20, one week before Sidor's incident, Newark Police announced a zero-tolerance plan to crack down on the recent increase in alcohol-related assaults in the community.
Under the new policy, police will no longer issue warnings or wait until a complaint has been made to take action on loud parties or noise violations.
University Police officers are partnering with Newark Police to enforce the policy. The officers are paid overtime through a grant from the Office of Highway Safety that is targeted at reducing underage drinking.
Newark Police Lt. Thomas LeMin said the policy is based on the correlation the department believes exists between off-campus parties and alcohol-related crimes, especially assaults.
"We hope to prevent the sexual assaults, fights, thefts and damage from criminal mischief that are all too often associated with parties where large numbers of underage people are drinking," he said.
According to Newark Police, as of Nov. 12, the number of arrests for aggravated assaults doubled from nine at this time last year to 18 this year.
The number of arrests for noise violations presents more striking numbers: as of Nov. 12, there have been 387 arrests for noise violations, an increase of 80 from the same date in 2004, police said.
One month into the policy, pink noise violation slips continue emptying students' wallets by the hundreds of dollars. The line grows longer each morning at violation hearings, and while most groggy students do not say much at 8 a.m., they have been anything but quiet outside Alderman's Court.
DUSC: Noise does not equal violence
The Delaware Undergraduate Student Congress is leading the fight to immediately suspend the policy.
While DUSC commends the police for being proactive in curbing assaults, the student organization believes the policy does not correctly address the issue.
"Students are being targeted by a flawed policy based on a non-existent relationship between noise and violence," senior Joe D'Agostino, DUSC city relations chairman, said.
The organization made numerous requests for police to provide evidence that links noise to the recent increase in violence, but the data does not exist.
"These crimes are occurring on the streets, not in parties," D'Agostino said.
At a city council meeting Nov. 14, DUSC attacked the policy head-on. More than 150 students poured into a crowded meeting hall to support a DUSC petition, signed by more than 1,000 students to date.
In addition to declaring there is no correlation between noise and violence, the petition stated that neither the university nor Newark police departments have shown evidence of how many students have been assailants. Students argue the policy is targeting students, not protecting them.
"In actuality, students are more often the targets of violent crime, not the assailants," D'Agostino told the packed room full of students and residents.
As council members debated the policy, acting Police Chief William Nefosky emerged from his seat in the back of the room and was handed a microphone.
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