by Katherine King

This past Sunday around 1 a.m., an unknown man with a taser appeared at the Gambier Grill, commonly known as the Cove.

“I was more in shock than anything,” Alex Kruse ’15, who was there at the time, said. Kruse had been standing outside the Cove with friends when she saw a dark car pull up. “This woman gets out of the car in her pajamas and starts yelling at everybody to get out of the way and to leave and then you see these lights coming from inside the car,” Kruse said. Kruse quickly left what seemed like a potentially dangerous situation.

Franny Alston ’15, another bystander, witnessed what happened next. “We saw this pole with current going up and down, … this large man gets out of the car … and he has a taser, and he is saying, ‘Everyone clear out,’” Alston said. Both Kruse and Alston were unclear as to who the armed man was targeting and why.

The incident appears to have been the result of an argument between a firefighter and security official hired by the Gambier Grill. According to Campus Safety Supervisor Todd Bell,  “They had been having problems with damage to vehicles … so they brought in a couple people to watch the vehicles overnight,” Bell said. “One of the members of the fire department came over and told them that they couldn’t be parking at the fire department parking lot … and then they showed the … stun gun,” Bell said. The Knox County Sheriff’s Office was called, but after talking to both parties, the officer did not make an official report.