I go to college in the Bronx, NY. Last night I was at the gym when my roommate called me saying our room was being searched by 3 security guards, our RA, and our residential director. Apparently, 30 minutes before the search, friends of my roommate were smoking weed in our room out the window. We do have a pretty safe setup: a large fan that sucks the air out, Febreze, towel under the door. It rarely ever smells of weed in our room after smoking. Our RA has been known to target weed smokers in an unfair way. Writing up only specific people for smoking and even just rolling in their room. Luckily I was never one of the targets previously but maybe something changed.
At first, only two student RA's were doing the searches, until they came to our room and knocked. My roommate opened the door and one of the RAs pushed the door open and welcomed himself into our room saying that it smelled like marijuana. He held open the door all the way, not moving, and told the other RA to get the residential director. The RD came immediately and without even saying a word to anyone or asking what the search was for, he bee-lined it to MY desk and started to go through my drawers.
Then security came and conducted their search. They literally tore apart our room opening sunglass cases, Clorox wet wipe containers, refrigerator, storage bins, you name it. Now here is where things get weird. They found a couple of my fake IDs in my desk. For some reason, they were suspicious as to why I had more than 1 fake and proceeded to agree between all of them that I was "producing fake IDs" and that my camera was used in the production of them, therefore, must be taken in as evidence. I am an avid photographer. I spent a year traveling South America taking pictures of everything I saw. I have over $6k invested in my setup. My camera isn't something I joke around with and they took it all. As "evidence."
When I moved into the dorm, I brought a fairly insecure safe just to keep important documents in like my passport and bank statements. It's extremely heavy, relatively small and portable, but it's marketed to protect against fires and storms so I was intending on using the safe to store drugs or anything like that. I keep the key in a little spot in my drawer just so I don't lose it. Security found the key and then proceeded to open my safe and take everything out.
For the record, this school has a very general housing policy. I searched their website from top to bottom looking for something related to opening things that the school doesn't own and I found nothing. The only thing I did find was the judicial process for being caught with drugs in your room which usually is just a fine.
Where do I stand? I haven't heard anything from anyone. I have no idea where my camera is. I know that the school is technically only allowed to search what they own which includes desk, drawers, dresser, and closet. Is it even legal to open a student's own safe that the school doesn't own? What should be my next course of action? Should I pursue asking why they opened my safe?