Students charged with littering for cotton ball incident
The Boone County prosecutor expects the students' guilty plea April 29.
Published April 20, 2010
Sean Fitzgerald, 19, and Zachary Tucker, 21, were formally charged Monday with littering, a class A misdemeanor, for scattering cotton balls across the front lawn of the Gaines/Oldham Black Culture Center on Feb. 26.
Boone County assistant prosecuting attorney Ryan Haigh said he is expecting guilty pleas from the two suspended MU students April 29. Possible punishments for the misdemeanor guilty plea could include a maximum time of one year in the Boone County Jail and/or a $1,000 fine.
The MU Police Department arrested Fitzgerald and Tucker on March 2 for dropping cotton balls outside the BCC, an MUPD news release issued after the arrest stated. Chancellor Brady Deaton temporarily suspended the two for their involvement the day of their arrests.
Haigh said the prosecutor's office initially looked at charging the students with littering, second-degree tampering or second-degree tampering enhanced by the hate crime statute.
If the prosecutor were to charge them with second-degree tampering, the state would have been required to show the purpose of Tucker and Fitzgerald's act was to cause a substantial inconvenience with respect to the property, Haigh said. The prosecutor said this would be difficult because it requires the effect be a substantial inconvenience to the owner or possessor of the property.
"It is concerned with the immediate effect, not peripheral consequences," Haigh said. "The tampering statute is commonly used when something is done to someone's car or a damaged item so that it can never be the same."
Haigh also said this particular situation is too complicated to attempt a tampering charge because of the wording of the law.
"Whether we like it or not, from a prosecutor's perspective, we are stuck with the law as a legislature provides it," he said. "We are beholden to the law as it is written."
Legion of Black Collegians President Lisa White said the majority of students angered by the act did not intend to have Fitzgerald and Tucker serve time in jail.
"We weren't really looking for revenge," White said. "That wasn't our intent. I guess I feel that if Boone County feels that is appropriate, we can make an understanding."
Four Front Co-Chairwoman ChaToyya Sewell said she is more worried about the campus environment rather than the punishment for the incident. Sewell is a Maneater columnist.
"I personally feel that I'm more concerned with a campus environment where people think this is funny or not a big deal, as opposed to the actions of individuals," Sewell said. "Individual acts of racism, which I do think it was racism, isn't necessarily my priority, as opposed to structural acts. They violated Safe Space, but I can't create a crime there, a legality where there's not one."
The MU News Bureau issued a news release Monday regarding the charges, summarizing the cotton ball incident and stating the university will not be involved with the legal process.
— Associate Editors Travis Cornejo and Kaylen Ralph contributed to this report.