Advice to Dejean-Jones: Give neighbors silent treatment

(Updated at the bottom of the post)

As far as crimes go, Bryce Dejean-Jones' biggest one may be being a jerk.

If you've had police to your apartment several times telling you to cut back on the noise (as police say you have), and you still keep pumping up the volume, you may be a jerk.

But it went further than that around 3:30 a.m., Thursday morning when the Iowa State basketball player was charged by the Ames Police Department with keeping a residence where a substance believed to be marijuana. Dejean-Jones spent several hours in the Story County Jail before that charge was dismissed by a Story County judge who said the complaint lacked enough probable cause to support the charge.

Dejean-Jones, the senior transfer from UNLV, still faces charges of hosting a loud gathering and breaking the city's noise ordinance.

'We've been out there more than five times this semester, trying to work on it - trying to resolve this (noise) issue,” Ames Police Commander Geoff Huff told the Des Moines Register. We've met with the residents. We've talked to the coaching staff. We've tried to solve the problem.”

And yet, the noise continued in the wee, wee hours. If you've lived in a college-town apartment building and never had a neighbor like that, you need to get your hearing checked.

Look, thousands, maybe millions, perhaps billions of college students are guilty of having loud, late-night gatherings. Thousands, maybe millions, perhaps billions have had one late-night greeting from the police telling them to knock it off, and maybe even charging them with disorderly house.

But if you get multiple visits from the police, something in your thought process isn't functioning quite right.

At least no one was driving under the influence of anything in this particular incident. Iowa State basketball players Matt Thomas and Abdel Nader were charged with OWI in the off-season. They served 3-game suspensions at the start of this season.

Iowa basketball player Peter Jok was arrested on an OWI charge in April, pleaded guilty, then was charged in July for driving his moped with a suspended driver's license. He was suspended from team activities in July and reinstated six weeks later.

Iowa State Coach Fred Hoiberg will address the media Thursday afternoon and presumably will announce whether Dejean-Jones is suspended for Friday night's Iowa State-Iowa game.

I think Hoiberg has to keep the player from making the trip to Iowa City. But let's also note that as crimes of the year go, Dejean-Jones' aren't among them. However, he's one more misstep from blowing the pretty sweet opportunity he's got in Ames to make a basketball name for himself and cash in overseas next year.

But if he doesn't let his fellow apartment tenants have a little peace and quiet after this, give him a one-way ticket back to Las Vegas. They're open all night there.

UPDATE:

Hoiberg announced Thursday afternoon that he has suspended Dejean-Jones for the Iowa game.

The Iowa State Daily's Max Dibble wrote this story detailing comments from Dejean-Jones' next-door neighbor, Matt White. An excerpt:

White provided the details of the meeting to which Huff alluded. White said the participants were himself, Officer Eric Snyder of the Ames Police Department, Dejean-Jones, his roommate and ISU men's basketball coach Fred Hoiberg.

'We came to an agreement that no more noise would happen,” White said. 'The trash in the hallway would stop, being disrespectful would stop, the bass would be turned off during the week and they could have it on during the weekends. At my discretion I could text them and tell them it was getting too loud.”

White said the meeting did not produce the desired results.

'They did not follow that, they continued to do the same things,” White said. 'I would text them, they would respond for a couple weeks and then they would stop responding. Then the cops would get back involved and that led to last night.”