A black University Law student who filed a complaint of police misconduct admitted last week that the incident never occurred.

Johnathan Perkins, who claimed he had been a victim of racial profiling in an alleged March 31 encounter, told University Police that he made up the story to “bring attention to the topic of police misconduct,” according to a press release.

Police Chief Michael Gibson, who completed a full investigation of the alleged incident, said he will not press charges because he does not want to deter other students from coming forward with evidence of police misconduct.

“I recognize that police misconduct does occur,” Gibson said in a statement. “Pressing charges in this case might inhibit another individual who experiences real police misconduct from coming forward with a complaint.”

Now, Perkins, set to graduate later this month, could face honor charges. If charges are filed, Perkins would be able to participate in graduation ceremonies, but the University would withhold his degree pending the outcome of a trial, Law School Dean Paul Mahoney said in a statement yesterday.

“The University and the Law School are committed to maintaining a community of trust and take violations of that trust with utmost seriousness,” Mahoney said.

–compiled by Cavalier Daily staff

When Osama bin Laden died, I was happy not to be in the United States. The pictures and descriptions of merrymaking in Times Square, University students gathering on the Corner and the almost macho admiration that figures such as Glenn Beck issued for Obama’s achievement — “Thank God we have a president who actually authorized the shoot to kill. That is a surprising shock to me.” — were enough for me.

Here are American college students setting off fireworks to celebrate a man’s death and claiming to be part of a more righteous nation than those headed by Muslim extremists, of which Bin Laden was the ultimate representation. The man was undeniably atrocious, but that does not make the displays of revelry rather than relief any less contradictory and disturbing.

The hunt for Bin Laden in both the Bush and Obama administrations was fueled by rhetoric found in Western movies — “There’s an old poster out West that says, ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive,’” Bush said — and echoing that of Big Foot pursuers — “He’s in a cave somewhere,” Obama added. It wavered in and out of the collective American consciousness and remained mostly out for the last few years when we have had more direct threats on our hands, such as an economy that still cannot retain a constant heartbeat. Now that Bin Laden is dead, however, we are brought into another world: one that is safer than last week’s, but where al Qaeda exists as a fresh threat and where the majority of our citizens, including University students, still hold the most facile conviction that “America = good” and “Iraq/Iran/Afghanistan/Libya/whatever = evil.”

In his New York Times obituary, Bin Laden’s declaration of war against the United States is quoted: “‘Muslims burn with anger at America,’ it read. The presence of American forces in the Persian Gulf states ‘will provoke the people of the country and induces aggression on their religion, feelings, and prides and pushes them to take up armed struggle against the invaders occupying the land.’” Bin Laden made this statement in 1996, five years before the September 11 attacks. Unfortunately, Bin Laden said nothing here that did not prove absolutely true. The attacks could not have been accomplished without a ready following of citizens who had plenty of reason to feel animosity toward the United States and be tempted by Bin Laden’s proffered alternative, which was religious glory or martyrdom.

Because as Bin Laden stated, the United States was, and still is, an “invader occupying the land.” No one can condone oppressive theocratic governments whose leaders manipulate the teachings of a religion to their own ends, and who rape, torture and kill. But it is equally unreasonable to see the United States as a faultless well-wisher with God on its side, one that would impart liberty and peace if only the Muslim extremists were not in the way.

The Times obituary ends with an invocation of bin Laden’s “greatest hope”: that “if he died at the hands of the Americans, the Muslim world would rise up and defeat the nation that had killed him.” How can Americans feel “safer” now that Bin Laden — who by now is more of a mythical figure and personification of “terror” than an actual threat — is dead? This does not even address the fact that Bin Laden’s body was “buried at sea.” But whether he is still alive, died Sunday or has been dead for years, what matters is that he has gone out with the bang of fireworks.

This, too, is distracting the public’s attention from the failed assassination of another figure who quickly is being elevated to Bin Laden’s elusive evil-doer status: Colonel Muammar al-Qadhafi. While NATO claims it did not target the leader or his family in its recent airstrikes in the Libyan capital, it nevertheless bombed Colonel Qadhafi’s family compound and killed a son and three grandchildren. Obama has yet to speak about that event.

It has been a decade since September 11, ten years in which Americans have found other occupations besides flag-waving and fear mongering, such as losing their jobs. Now, after ten years with nothing akin to the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, the “war on terror” is renewed with fresh vigor. Armed with the concluding words of Obama’s speech announcing Bin Laden’s death — “may God bless the United States of America” — we continue to fight a Muslim hegemony with a Christian one and pit the despicable against the despicable. Now that the evilest man alive is dead, terror again has room to reign.

Allison Geller is a third-year College student.

OSAMA BIN Laden is dead, killed along with several of his associates by a Navy SEAL team inside his Pakistani hideaway. His killing removes an undoubtedly evil man who, if he had become increasingly irrelevant in recent years, nevertheless remained a potent symbol of opposition to the United States. We should be glad that he is gone and thankful to his killers who risked their lives for this success.

And yet, the American response to the news of bin Laden’s death has been one of unseemly celebration and the worst kind of jingoistic hubris. The crude chanting of “U-S-A!” at sports games ; the visible excitement of television news anchors, making a mockery of their objectivity; the festival atmosphere of crowds rejoicing in the streets, evidently shared by Condoleezza Rice, who declared the news to be “absolutely thrilling” — these are symptoms of a callousness and an overconfidence that are morally troubling and practically damaging. Watching a CNN reporter compare Bin Laden’s death to the killing of Hitler or Mussolini, one was staggered by the swaggering, nationalistic bravado that could produce such an equation. On the other hand, for unflappable capitalistic self-importance, it would be difficult to match Warren Buffett’s off-hand comment: “I don’t think this is a big market factor.”

The aforementioned responses are, in some ways, understandable. In recent years, the American mood has been depressed, soured and lacking in high points. With little respite from economic slump, viciously futile political competition and seemingly interminable military adventuring abroad, one might reasonably leap at the chance for an outburst of national pride. For a nation constantly troubled by murmurings of its own decline, there could be few things so cathartic as the crushing of an old enemy in a resolute and righteous display of power.

Let the point not be slighted that Osama bin Laden was just such an enemy, who deserved his fate. The massive bloodshed he had inspired — both of Americans and many others — was an appalling record of senseless hatred. It is difficult to justify execution under any circumstances, but surely Bin Laden would have merited the death penalty had he been captured alive. Despite this, it makes the blood run cold to think of the public fever that would have surrounded Bin Laden’s trial in the United States. One only can imagine something like a medieval mob — on a national scale — cheering on the executioner while some hapless traitor was hung, drawn and quartered before their eyes.

Indeed, has this imagined picture been so far from the case? The near-universal American elation at his death – unthinkingly exuberant or full of great-power braggadocio – seems to spring from that same age-old love of revenge. In its basic moral content, this is essentially an atavistic revival of the impaling of criminals’ heads above the town gates. “Look,” it says, “this is what comes to those who do us ill.” In more recent centuries, the punitive expeditions of European colonial powers in Africa, steaming into the interior in their armoured gunboats to put down restless tribes, come to mind. While Bin Laden is not the same, his death has brought out similar impulses.

The basic premise of these impulsive responses to the killing is the rightful might of the United States. At the moment, we would do well to maintain a sense of perspective. The most elite, highly-trained and superbly equipped forces of the American military, acting upon ten years of intelligence-gathering by the world’s most all-seeing security apparatus, have managed at last to eliminate one old terrorist hiding out in a mansion in Pakistan. This is hardly a testament to national power.

As we will no doubt be reminded in the coming days by the generals and spymasters, whose War on Terror depends on this fact, those actually responsible for recent threats and attacks against the United States remain at large. Bin Laden’s death, despite its symbolic value for Americans, will do little or nothing to change the situation and may well spur retaliatory attacks. The Obama administration recognizes this, and so Americans have been treated to the bizarre juxtaposition of the president playing to the excited national mood, while at the same time striving to convey that Bin Laden was given a proper Muslim burial — albeit at sea — in an effort to maintain the newly respectful American façade. Jingoism, before even considering its moral detestability, will do no good for the reputation or for the security of the United States.

We have killed Osama bin Laden. The man responsible for the September 11 attacks, for the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa and for many other atrocities besides, is dead and gone. This ought to be a moment of quiet thankfulness, of reflection upon the causes and mourning for the victims of evil. Instead, it is in danger of becoming an occasion of disgusting and dangerous triumphalism, of cocksure pride that blinds us to the issues at stake. Let it not be so.

David Wilson is a second-year College student.