Are you aware of the whole sidewalk chalk thing that’s going on around campus?

Yes.

What’s your take on the whole situation?

I think the police were a little over-zealous. It’s just chalk. I mean, if it really was as bad as the police were claiming, give the person a hose and have them wash it off.

So it seems like you think that it’s pretty senseless to be arrested for something like drawing with chalk on school grounds?

Yeah. I mean, if you’re tagging stuff and using spray paint, I understand if you write on a building that’s a little worse than writing on the sidewalk. But again, just give them a brush and some water and be like, ‘Go wash it off and nothing happened.’ To arrest a guy and claim that he criminally damaged the building when the chalk is going to disappear in a week is excessive when there’s a bunch of other things I think we could be spending time and effort on.

What do you think the police would do if a group of little school girls was playing hopscotch near the student union and they drew with chalk on the pavement? Do you think they’d arrest the little girls too?

Well, they set the precedent that they would be damaging school property so I think they would have to.

But it’s just chalk and a little game of hopscotch.

If you’re going to set the rules it either has to be equal to all or it shouldn’t be that kind of rule.

How much money do you think the police department is spending on this thing?

Way too much. Um, yeah. Just way too much.

Besides giving them a hose or whatever, what do you think is the best way to handle this whole deal?

I mean, to draw a corollary is when they had the Pinwheels for Peace. It was like, all right, cool. It’s a freedom of speech thing but you just stuck a bunch of pencils in paper and then the wind was blowing them around, but I don’t see that organization being paid for the cleanup effort. I mean, I don’t really see what the difference is.