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On Thursday, a 78-wear-old man in Lindon called 911 and threatened to kill himself. Within hours the street the man lives on was on lock down as dozens of officers secured the scene. Long story short, a volley of bean bags subdued the man and all is well in Utah County once again.

78-year-old man arrested after standoff with police in Lindon (Daily Herald)

Lindon standoff ends with nonlethal force (Deseret Morning News)

These types of standoffs, where a depressed individual essentially holds themselves hostage, are very dangerous scenes for the police officers that respond. Sometimes the situation escalates into "suicide by cop" scenario. Not long ago in Santaquin a suicidal man pointed his shotgun at officers, forcing them to take lethal action.

Luckily, yesterday's story ended with the best possible outcome. The man is alive and will hopefully now get the psychiatric attention he needs. It could have been much worse.

Please induldge me and look closely at the photos I posted above.

Now the photo with the cop holding an assault rifle while a little girl looks through her window is certainly frightening, but the one that scares the hell out of me is the photo of SWAT team members in jungle camouflaged fatigues walking in front of an ambulance. Is that really necessary for one old man laying in his backyard threatening to shoot himself?

I don't pretend to be a law enforcement expert, and I am sure that this kind of response can be justified with policies, procedures and training that says it is better to error on the side of caution. I get that. Cops put their lives on the line, and as such we give them a certain amount of leway. But when the cops start looking less like peace officers and more like strike teams, especially when dealing with one disturbed individual, as a citizen I get nervous. And I would imagine that if I were that disturbed person and saw what looked like the Navy Seals coming at me, I might decide I have no choice but to escalate the situation.

It reminds me of the heady days of 2004 when then-UVSC invited Michael Moore to speak on campus. In a meeting to plan the logistics of an event that had been hyped in the media for weeks the campus police chief was asked about his preparations. He laid out the plan for traffic controls and the coordinations with other local agencies, and then mentioned that his police force would be wearing their SWAT gear. When asked why a public speaking engagement would warrant SWAT gear the police chief said that they had purchased all this gear and if they didn't use it now, when would they?

I think most people, and I'll go ahead and say most men, believe that when you purchase expensive equipment and don't use it regularly you start to look for excuses to use it. Got a big drill with all the fancy attachments? Better whip it out when comes time to tighten that loose door hinge. If not now, when?

Now imagine you are a cop in Utah Valley. The highlight of your day comes when you can do something besides write traffic tickets. Ever wonder why the simplest domestic disturbance warrants a half dozen cop cars? Sometimes it is less about procedure and more about cops playing the role of cops.

Just last month some of the same officers that responded to this incident were involved in a hostage drill that took place at UVU. The pictures taken during that event look quite familar, don't they?

UVU hostage drill (Deseret Morning News)

We want our officers trained. We want them to follow procedure and react properly when they find themsleves in dangerous situations. But part of that training should be restraint...that perception is reality, and that not every situation warrants busting out the big guns.

The gear and uniforms and weapons that were deployed in Lindon yesterday look a lot like, pardon the expression, overkill. Perhaps the officers felt that this situation called for such a response. But I think there is also a secondary effect to such a show of force...with emphasis on the show. What the local cops also get out of this is a front-page, above the fold advertisement that says "Do Not Fuck With US".

Is that what we want?

Do you think I am out of my mind when I say this incident has served a dual purpose as an advertisement? I want you to cycle through those pictures one more time. Look how close the Des News photographer got to the action...he is right on top of it! It doesn't look like he was using a huge telephoto lens either (note the depth of field, telephoto shots appear flatter). Although the situation called for dozens of officers (and one witness in the Des News comments section claims that there were at least 40) the photographer had their permission to get this close. If it was dangerous enough for full-camo and assault rifles then wasn't it too dangerous to have a civilian right in the mix snapping pictures?

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This message was just sent to me on Facebook via the Save Rock Canyon group:

THE NEWS YOU ALL WANTED TO HEAR!

The focus weve all been working on is to "Save the canyon."That focus is now going to be "preserve the canyon."

A meeting was held in recent weeks by key officials concerning the issue.The resolve out of this meeting was that Rock Canyon will not be mined.Two major things are in the works – private negotiations with the mining company and a court case regarding ownership of the mining claim. Either one of these may result in a resolution of the conflict.



Grassroots awareness continues to be very important. We would like to encourage people to get onto the PreserveRockCanyon.com website and learn the facts of the issue still. Also, take the Rock Canyon Usage Survey available on that site. The survey will be a valuable tool to document usage and notify people if other attempts to resolve the conflict are not successful.



Getting bloggers and Facebookers to LINK to the PreserveRockCanyon.com website will help get surveys completed and collect email addresses for needs down the road. It will also provide a way for the public to get access to the history, mining permits, and what issues to address when writing a letter.

SO WE STILL NEED YOUR HELP



Currently, information about the conflict is being distributed from a booth at the Provo Farmers’ Market and through “pass-along cards” given to people using the canyon.



If there’s breaking news, it will be placed on both the Facebook site (Save Rock Canyon) and the website.



Recently a few other grass roots organizations have sprouted in the canyon issue.The Rock Canyon Alliance,PreserveRockCanyo

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You may have noticed the new look of The Uvula, and that is because we have moved over to posterous. In doing so I royally screwed up the import process (moved my domain name first...like an idiot) and so I have lost all of my previous posts. Luckily that was only like 5 items. I have reprinted one of those posts below (thank god for e-mail) and as a special bonus I have imported all of the posts from the UVSC Pipeline blog that I ran for a couple of years. Feel free to take a stroll through yesteryear in the days leading up to the transition to UVU.

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The following was written by a member of The Uvula staff who wishes to
remain to be anonymous.
 
It’s no secret Utah, and more specifically, Utah County enjoys a reputation as a Grand Central Station of sorts for MLMers, vitamin cure-all pushers, and affinity fraudsters.
 
Now Billboard polluter, and political cult leader Rick Koerber is facing a myriad of charges.
 
  We won’t comment on his innocence or guilt but its clear Koerber had connections. Former LDS GA Hartman Rector Jr. served as “spiritual advisor” to Koerber’s school, the Founders Academy. During the push for school vouchers Koerber and Overstock.Com Ceo Patrick Byrne were practiacally wed at the hip with Byrne making appearances on Koerber’s radio show. The Free (for how long?) Capitalist’s ties to legislator Carl Wimmer have also come under scrutiny. And the ever enterprising Koerber even dabbled with film, backing a Richard Dutcher movie. 

  But don’t blame any of the above for cozying up to Rick, according to one of his former ward members Koerber was dripping in charisma and charm. Against standard LDS practice, Koerber was installed in a position of trust (Executive Secretary) before his church membership records had arrived. This same source tells the UVULA that the bishop sent financially troubled families to Koerber for help and counsel.
 
  It begs the question, what is wrong with a good ole relief society food order and some resume help at the church employment center?

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Yeah...so I switched the name of the UVSC Pipeline to the UVU Pipeline. That is not to say that I am jumping back into the blogging game. Recently I have noticed that the college marketing department has done such a fine job telling everyone that UVSC is now UVU that folks just don't even search the old name anymore. And it would be a damn shame if folks interested in UVU news, no matter how outdated it was, missed out on finding the Pipeline.

So for now at least I'll keep the old banner up and everything will pretty much just stay the same. But with all the crazy stuff happening around campus right now it might be hard for me to stay quiet for long.

On a personal note I have recently changed positions, moving from The Woodbury Art Museum to the brand new School of the Arts. I had been at the museum for nearly 2 and half years, and while I really enjoyed my time there, it was time for a change. I have been at SOA for less than a week and I can already tell that I made the right decision.

Also, the wife and I are the Resident leaders for the new Honors residential cohort at UVU.

So on the eve of a new semester, the first as a new university, I wish you all luck.

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Once again top administrators at the Utah College of Applied Technology (UCAT) are asking the state legislature's higher ed committee to consider giveing them the ability to grant credit-bearing trades degrees, and thus be able to offer more applied associate degrees.

UCAT campuses seek degrees with credit
Higher-ed official says that would create overlap with what is already being offered (Slat Lake Tribune, May 20 2008)

Last summer the state's Board of Regents rejected a UCAT proposal to grant such degrees citing the fact that the system's eight campuses don't offer transferable credits. Now UCAT is asking the Higher Education and Applied Technology Governance Committee to circumvent the Regents decision.

This of course does not sit well with interim Regent chief David Buhler, who fears that a credit-bearing UCAT would compete with the state's traditional schools. Of course UVSC would be at the top of that list. For the past several years UVSC has lost market share as more and more Utah County trades students have chosen to get training at Mountainlands Applied Technology Center (MATC) located just across the street. If MATC started offering the same degree programs it would not be long before trades at UVSC would go the way of the Dodo.

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Professors who choose to work the summer semester are in for a nice surprise: administrators have approved a raise.


UVSC boosts pay for summer
More students creating bigger faculty workload
(Deseret Morning News, April 29 2008)

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Former UVSC student Josh Ligairi and his co-director Andrew James are putting the finishing touches on a documentary that explores the distinctly Utah phenomenon of edited movie clubs. For years local video store proprietors have played a game of cat and mouse with Hollywood as they try to work around the legal issue of editing videos for content. The story got a lot more interesting when one of the biggest champions of edited movies, Daniel Dean Thompson, was arrested earlier this year for allegedly paying two under-aged girls for oral sex.


Court case extends documentary film project (Daily Herald, April 29 2008)

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