<p>There are some very astute discussions and observations on this case (Caramelkisses, etc.) on the Harvard forum thread “Student says Harvard is wrongly linking…”</p>
<p>Ellemenope- I agree on the masters’ plight–a life in academia does not really prepare you for mayhem and murder.</p>
<p>At some point, I hope we hear the entire story. I suspect that part of it will be that the shooting victim was regularly allowed access to Kirkland House and that many residents were aware of what he was doing. The silence of the Harvard African American community in support of Campbell is deafening – one wonders what is common knowledge of the students. The question will be what was the residence staff thinking? Were they unable to draw a line between outsiders dealing drugs in the residence versus recreational drug use and underage drinking (action against the latter might empty the dorms)? Were they afraid of being considered racist if they told Cosby to get lost?</p>
<p>I feel badly for everyone. Even if Cosby were dealing, he did not deserve a death penalty. I think we need a full understanding of everything that led up to the shooting, if only to help it from being repeated.</p>
<p>When I was in college, there were plenty of friendly neighborhood pot dealers and plenty who were students too. They didn’t stand out from anyone else and they didn’t carry guns. I’m sure the “plan” was for nobody to get hurt, but things go downhill quickly when guns and money mix.</p>
<p>Some news accounts have the police and/or DA saying the plan WAS to rip off a dealer and involved a gun. Presumably the dealer wasnt in on it. I’ld like to know how often Cosby was in Kirkland House, did he have the run of it, who knew and how common is it in college for outside dealers to be hanging out in the dorms?</p>
<p>Oh, I think there was a plan to rob the dealer, but I’ll bet they thought they could do it without anyone getting hurt. I think that if they expected violence, they would have chosen someplace other than a dorm in which to do the deed. I know that what they planned doesn’t matter - it is what happened that counts.</p>
<p>The architecture is such that getting into one entryway doesn’t enable you to go anywhere else in the House. Many entryways are connected through the basement, but you need the ID card in order to get back into a student space from the basement. It would only be possible for an outsider to have “the run of” a House if a student host relinquished her ID card to the outsider, which would be pretty weird – just for starters, the student couldn’t eat on campus without it. If she’d reported it missing, they would have deactivated the old one.</p>
<p>That being said, if an unrecognized young person were hanging out in the courtyard or whatever, that wouldn’t attract any comment. There are students from neighboring colleges on campus all the time for parties, concerts, etc.</p>