Three city policemen stood near the entryway to the exhibition hall at the Franklin & Marshall Alumni Center Thursday evening, looking somewhat out of place and, some suggested, perhaps on a Ron Harper, Jr. watch.
It was significant that the college chose not to use its own private security force, perhaps not wanting to risk a re-run of the officers’ aberrant treatment of Harper when they attacked and threw him to the ground while he was peacefully standing across Marietta Avenue from the house of F&M president John Fry.
What action, if any, the City Police would have taken had Harper shown up is hard to predict. After all, it was a public event. In fact Fry made a big point later in the evening that the public has always been allowed to share F&M’s grounds the same as students and faculty.
That is one of the reasons a prominent law firm gave for suggesting that the Defiant Trespass notices given Harper and others were unenforceable in areas open to the public, at events to which the public is invited, and in such leased establishments as restaurants and stores.
