My freshmen year at Chico State was in 1996 and my last class of the week was good ol' Freshman English. I didn't know anybody in that class except Joe Lake, the 23 year old who looked like Harry Potter's pathetic older brother. He lived across from me on the fifth floor of Chico's infamous on-campus dormitory, Whitney Hall. He asked me to be his study partner because he needed grammatical and writing help and knew I was an English major. His command of the English Language was as bad as his style of dress, but I agreed to help him out.
He turned out to be okay, I had thought. I mean, he bought me a 12 pack of Keystone for tutoring him one day and he'd occasionally try to force us dorm kids to drink Jaegarmeister out of tin camping mugs. If I'd refuse, he'd call me a pussy and ramble about his rock climbing adventures or his latest escapades with the Fish Girls. The Fish Girls were two eccentric females who hung a plethora of colorful, decorative fish from their dorm room's ceiling. Joe was hooking up with one of them (no pun intended). We all thought he and the Fish Girls were a little weird, but they definitely gave us something to talk about. One of my fellow floormates went as far as to ask Joe if he was a cop. Joe laughed, said "no" and rambled something about rock climbing.
One particular Friday in English class, Joe seemed frantically excited about his weekend trip to climb Mt. Hood. Usually we would walk back to the dorms together after class, but that day he didn't come along. "Well, I'm off to Mt. Hood," was the last thing I ever heard him say.
The next morning, a Saturday, was one of the only sleep-in days of the week for me. But at about 7am I was awakened by a fist repeatedly slamming against door, followed by "OPEN UP! CHICO POLICE!" I honestly thought I was dreaming, but then I heard it all again. I looked out of my door's window, which peered into hallway, to see my next dorm neighbor in handcuffs, wearing just his boxer shorts. I woke up my roommate, quickly got dressed and watched five more of my floormates get escorted into the elevator in cuffs.
All were accused of selling very small amounts of marijuana. It had appeared to be the beginning of a larger operation. But the university wanted to make an example out of these students, so they called in the media. On the news, we watched the police take these petty dealers away in the paddy wagon - most of their faces were covered with shirts or towels. If I didn't know them, I would think they were dubious ruffians who sold heroine to 3rd graders. But I did know them and they were good people.
It was then reported that there had been an undercover agent living in the dorms, whose name was Joe Young. Quite an alias there, Joe Lake. I also soon found out that he was actually 28 years old and married. I talked to a lawyer defending one of the students and agreed to testify that Joe had purchased minors cheap beer and had pressured them to drink his terrible hard liquor. Fish Girl spoke up and admitted that they had an intimate, physical relationship.
It turns out that he took our English class to improve his writing in his police reports. I had the opportunity to read of few of them. Man, they were bad. One of them stated that one of the females (of the arrested) ended a phone conversation by saying, "Gotta go. Days is on." Joe spelled it "D-A-Z-E". She was talking about the soap opera, not a drugged state of mind. Idiot.
Since Joe's presence was unfair (a violation of the 4th Amendment) and his actions were disgraceful, I joined my fellow dormmates in marching to the Student Union and demanded that they support us. They did. We then marched into President Esteban's office (with the same news crew that covered the arrests) and demanded that he support us. If I remember correctly, he did too. But that doesn't forgive the fact that he agreed to have the undercover agent placed in the dorms.
The rest of the details are hazy/lost in memory, but I think the charges were dropped and the students were suspended for a semester. I know that two students came back to the University to finish their education; one even went on to become a lawyer. Rumor had it that Joe was fired and that he had taken to killing puppies or something awful like that. For a while, I had serious trust issues with people because of him. I almost moved out of the dorms, but I'm glad I stayed. I'm glad I stood up for something.
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