Around the time you hit the age of 15 (or maybe 18 if you were one of those late bloomers), the police cease to be those friendly beacons of justice and protection you once knew them as. Instead of keeping the real-life boogie men from hiding under your bed, they start busting you for smoking pot in the Nature Preserve, driving five miles per hour over the speed limit around the Brain and hosting 200-person parties at your off-campus abode.

As a Binghamton University student, you probably came here disliking the police on principle, and we’re willing to bet that your relations with the boys in blue haven’t changed much since arriving in the carousel capital of the world.

But right now is the time to change that.

In May, the Binghamton City Police Department swore in a new leader, Chief Steven R. Tronovitch. Tronovitch says he understands where college kids are coming from. A former Broome Community College student, the 50-something boasts a hearing impairment due to his days standing next to an amp while playing bass for his college band.

And one of his top priorities? Improving the relations between BU students and Binghamton police.

The switch in leadership seems like a golden opportunity to reexamine the perceived prejudice students say that city cops harbor against them the minute they step out of their cabs and onto State Street, or move their belongings into that overpriced dump they rented on Binghamton’s West Side.

But if we expect the police to treat us with even an ounce of respect, we need to show them that we can hold up our end of the bargain.

There’s nothing wrong with having a few friends over your house for a drink or two on a Saturday night. There is something wrong with 100 people blasting music and playing beer pong on your front porch at three in the morning while the little old lady next door has a heart attack from the noise.

And if you don’t want to be treated like a degenerate when you’re walking to Uncle Tony’s on mug night, then stop smashing the windows of police cars the minute they’re left unattended. (OK, we know most of you aren’t dumb enough to go out smashing car windows, but at least one of you was in the past, and it only takes that one to make the rest of us look like major A-holes.)

So let’s take this chance to make friends with the Binghamton City Police. They seem to earnestly want a chance to start a mutually respectful relationship with the students of BU, and hey, if they’re playing us for fools, we can always go back to smashing windows.