Every night around 10pm, the
University of Southern California secures its borders against the rough-and-tumble outside community by closing and locking the roughly five-foot tall
metal gates that line the campus. While most professional security scoff at the low barrier, it came to the rescue Wednesday evening.
Last night at 9pm, an armed and
dangerous assailant intent on strolling onto campus and
killing everyone in sight was stopped by the low-rising impediment.
“I believe he said something like “I fully intend to walk onto
campus and kill everyone in sight!’ or something”, said Gary Moss, first
security guard at the scene. “He had some nasty weapons on him, but
he just kept yelling “I can’t do it! I can’t do it!’ I don’t think he was
prepared for that gate.”
The suspect’s name is being withheld pending formal investigation.
Campus police confirmed in a statement that the locked gates
are, in fact, the only thing that kept this dangerous criminal from entering the
university, “because really, what psycho killer intent on spilling some serious
blood wants to hop over a little gate to do it? He didn’t expect that five-and-a-half foot
gate, and that’s what we were counting on when we had them installed.”
A survey conducted by campus security found that while
homeward-bound students do not hesitate to scale the gates in order to exit,
serious motivated and experienced criminals are not as brash.
As Moss said, “I don’t even know why we have security
when we’ve got these babies.”
Since the incident, students around campus have changed
their tune about the gates. Jenna Weiss, a sophomore with later classes, expressed her new attitude. “So what if I have to make a dangerous
but doable climb over some metal spikes while I’m alone and carrying a heavy
backpack night after night just to get home? If that’s the trade-off for effectively
keeping out psycho murderers, I have no problem with that.”
