BERKELEY, Calif. – Students and faculty alike were shocked last week as students were bombarded with several UCPD alerts detailing armed robberies and grand-theft gasoline.
“It was absolutely crazy dude,” Berkeley student Jeremy Beefreyborfer recounted. “I was on my way to go throw pebbles at the falcons living atop the Campanile when all of a sudden I heard some dude scream ‘your money or your life’ from the Eucalyptus Grove. I was so terrified, I had to sit down and breathe for at least 5 minutes before I could continue with my stone throwing.”
Crime is no new development in the area surrounding Berkeley; students seem unsurprised to receive frequent robbery alerts.
“I’ve learned at this point that muggings on campus are inevitable, that’s why I have a fool-proof anti-mugging plan I follow every time I walk alone at night through campus,” junior Andrea Piggesflesh shared. “Usually I try to follow a lighted path, FaceTime a friend, and shout ‘I am the antichrist and I’ve come to feast upon your flesh.’ Usually those tactics discourage thieves!”
In a major departure from typical thievery at UC Berkeley, these recent incidents have been perpetrated by individuals other than the Financial Aid Office.
“Students of Berkeley, we stand in full solidarity with you at this time as you face the danger of highway robbery,” the Financial Aid Office wrote in an official statement. “We at Berkeley fully believe that the only highway robbery you should face is at the hands of us, the Financial Aid Department, as we charge you an arm and a leg in tuition.
“It is unacceptable that students are being forced to empty their wallets at gunpoint. Instead, let’s return to the norm of them turning out their pockets under the threat of academic holds and expulsion, the natural order of things. UC Berkeley has been our territory since the 70s. Do you know how hard we had to work to get rid of free tuition? It took elbow-grease to squeeze thousands of dollars out of teens and twenty-year olds and convince them to pony up! We can’t jeopardize that now with unsanctioned activity on our flock.
“Don’t try to muscle in on our turf. We’ll deploy UCPD and any other means necessary (yes, including the giant robot we’re housing in the Hazardous Materials Facility) to ensure nobody’s trying to take what’s ours to steal.”
UCPD and the Financial Aid Office did, however, amend their statement in a later email:
“About the gasoline theft, we pledged carbon neutral by 2025–we still have 4 years left to pollute so come back then.”
Image courtesy of Wikipedia.