More than a week after last Tuesday’s bizarre incident in the Quad, it’s still unclear exactly how quickly LSUPD was able to respond.
According to a timeline established by the department, it took 3 minutes and 45 seconds for officers to be dispatched, after which officers took just less than a minute to arrive on the scene.
But University instructor and doctoral student Joe Rhodes, who claims to have followed the student involved during the entire incident, claims it took much longer than that.
Rhodes’ phone records, which show a series of calls occurring during a period of about 20 minutes, don’t match up with the timeline established by the police. For example, one of Rhodes’ calls — which he claims he made when the student pulled a gas can out of his car — occurred 25 seconds after LSUPD claims officers responded to the scene.
If all of Rhodes’ phone calls were made for the reasons he has given, officers arrived on the scene significantly later than the timeline indicates.
We’re not ready to assert that the police records are incorrect, but the facts are unclear. And this isn’t idle speculation — in the case of a real threat to campus, it’s absolutely essential LSUPD is able to respond quickly. If police didn’t make it on the scene until Rhodes claims they did, the department needs to do some serious work on their response times.
It’s imperative LSUPD release the tapes of the incident and response as soon as legally possible so this matter can be resolved — before the consequences become tragically real.
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