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Party Escalates Into Riot Posted 2010-04-10
Police Use Tear Gas To Disperse Crowd
By Pete DeLea
Lt. R.Sites of the Harrisonburg Police Department leads out one arrested partygoer attending Springfest on Saturday. As of late afternoon, several dozen people had been arrested at the annual block party that takes place at off-campus housing near James Madison University.
Photograph by Pete DeLea
HARRISONBURG - Police used pepper spray and tear gas to break up a crowd of as many as 8,000 college-aged adults Saturday, as partygoers at an annual off-campus block party refused orders to disperse and pelted officers with beer bottles.
A few dozen people were seen being arrested and several were injured by flying glass during the afternoon and early evening just blocks from James Madison University. A number of fires also were started in trash bins.
"This today was just outlandish," said Lt. Kurt Boshart of the Harrisonburg Police Department, who added many of the problems were most likely started by people who come to the party from out of town and not JMU students.
Harrisonburg police were on standby starting Friday evening in anticipation of the large crowds that flock each year to the off-campus housing area for Springfest - a three-day party known to draw thousands of JMU students.
The Fox Hill Townhomes on Devon Lane typically serves as ground zero for the block party, but the crowds usually spill out to other student-housing complexes along Port Republic Road.
By Friday night, property managers shut down Fox Hill, so the partygoers were forced to find somewhere else to go.
Police say the party headed to Village Lane, where things started to get out of hand.
By Saturday afternoon, the crowd swelled to 8,000 people, police say.
Andrew Reese, a 20-year-old JMU sophomore, said the party just got too wild. He said he had a few friends at his home on Forest Hill Road but several uninvited guests started to flood the area.
"It definitely got to the point where it got out of control," said Reese, who added partygoers started to throw beer bottles at police officers, cars and at home windows.
Around 4 p.m., police declared the scene an unlawful assembly.
Boshart said officers first went in and asked people to leave the area but were pelted with beer bottles. At that point, he said, police pulled out to regroup.
Commanders on the scene called in HPD's Civil Disturbance Unit and additional riot teams from the Virginia State Police and Staunton Police Department.
Boshart said officers were determined to regain control.
"We will restore order," he said as police began to take action. "We will make sure the neighborhood is safe."
For about two hours, dozens of officers showed up to the command center set up near the Days Inn off Port Republic Road, near the Interstate 81 overpass.
Around 6 p.m., about 200 officers were on the scene, many of them in full riot gear, and headed into the crowd.
They began using a public address system to notify people that they were assembling unlawfully and needed to leave or be arrested.
Many partygoers left, but about 1,000 refused. They began pelting the officers with beer bottles, pieces of wood and coolers.
Officers began using pepper spray, which can be effective as far as 20 feet away. The civil disturbance unit then used tear gas to disperse the remaining partygoers.
Many ran out, covering their faces, and shouting obscenities at the officers.
Reese said he was pleased to see police take control of the party.
"At some point, you have to put your foot down," he said.
Shortly after the crowd dispersed, many partygoers began to head to Sully Drive off Devon Lane and regrouped. Several began lighting multiple Dumpsters on fire.
Around 9 p.m., several VSP and medical helicopters were dispatched to the Harrisonburg area to assist with air patrol.
Bosart said, "gatherings will not be tolerated tonight."
Police planned to have patrols through the night.
Springfest is one of the largest parties of the year among JMU students. The other occurs the first weekend before school starts.
During these parties, officers usually write dozens of citations for underage drinking, possessing an open container and littering.
The last time a JMU-linked party got out of hand was about 10 years ago, when the back-to-school block party turned into a riot. Dozens were arrested then and several officers were slightly injured.
Given this weekend's incident, Boshart said the department will sit down with community leaders in the near future to discuss what took place and how to avoid it in the future.
Contact Pete DeLea at 574-6278 or pdelea@dnronline.com
Guy trying to stop people from assaulting officers with bottles gets arrested.
Video 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vqs9eql1W8)
Clear view of idiots, for lack of a better term, assaulting sworn officers.
Video 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJJNTLwGLFo)
I want to first thank all of the law enforcement officers for restoring peace. My question to this madness, is do you all believe the officers should have used more force such as bean bags, rubber bullets, etc? It was really sad to see this initially fun, peaceful event become so violent. This was my last block party as an undergraduate student and I have never seen this type of behavior. Way to go, for a small group of idiots to ruin it for everyone.
I have my opinion on this and it will run counter to what you may think, or others on this forum. But since my undergraduate degree was at UofO in Oregon, and I have seen the realities of this first hand, I would say no I don't think the police should have used more force then they did.
Here is what's going to happen next year:
A heavy police presence will be apparent prior to the party, and may actually shut the original party down forcing people to a new location. Meanwhile all of the people that enjoyed last years chaos will be planning to recreate the event. They will start "flashing" up in areas starting fires at parties, and messing things up trying to stoke the fire if you will. Police will respond in force.
The Next Year?
Increase the violence on both sides...
I realize this is pessimistic but I watched what was essentially a "cold" or a better term would be "non-lethal" war between college students and police that continued to increase in violence on both sides every year. I know that some officers on this site will disagree with me, but I have Riot Squad officers that have conceded this point to me, it is kind of like a game. A really intense version of rugby, where both sides kick the shit out of each other then hold back till the next year waiting.
My biggest suggestion to the officers is never allow parties to get this big to begin with. But with the politics of Universities this is a hard thing to do, as they contribute a lot of money to local communities. Notice in the above article that they state that the "trouble makers" weren't from the University itself. This is a calculated political move to insure that the University doesn't get a bad name, or suffer any sort of repercussions for the party.
College kids get drunk. They go insane and are very likely to go mob crazy in the presence of law enforcement. The key is breaking up any largish gathering as soon as possible, thus keeping the groups spread out in different locations not in a mob of 8,000 drunken hooligans.
The town I live in is absolute chaos 5 nights of the week. The student population outnumbers the town population. When bars close it is a nightly event to have several thousand drunken students in the street going home. The way the police deal with it is with an iron fist in regards to large congregations of people outside of the bars themselves. Anytime there is a gathering they come in flying and break it up, making arrests that need to be made, and then they move on to the next group. You will never see groups of more then 25-50 people together at night. And unlike your school, or Eugene OR, they have never had a student riot, despite being listed as one of the top 5 party schools in the nation. Basically your orgy of a party that you though was fun was destined to turn into what it did given the circumstances, and never allowing it to get there in the first place is the key to preventing an riot. It may suck that you don't get to stare at 4,000 hot drunk women while living the best time of your life, but consider yourself lucky. I've seen rubber bullets, and bean bags, and the aftermath, and your lucky your party was only subjected to a little CS. Be happy there are no kids in emergency rooms with rubber bullet wounds to the skull, and hope that the police will start talking to the University tomorrow to insure that next year a party of this magnitude is not allowed to take place.
The college degreed future of America.
John_Wayne777
04-13-10, 07:38
I want to first thank all of the law enforcement officers for restoring peace. My question to this madness, is do you all believe the officers should have used more force such as bean bags, rubber bullets, etc?
More force.
People bouncing beer bottles off the heads of other people is sufficient cause to start busting heads. Failure to follow REPEATED orders to disperse (including a broadcast message by text/cell to most JMU students) is sufficient cause to start busting heads.
Busting up cars and setting stuff on fire is sufficient cause to start busting heads.
The police at the scene were taking video and collecting thrown beer bottles to get fingerprints. They are scouring the hundreds of videos posted on the internet that nicely document criminal acts.
I hope they put everyone they can in jail.
The city and surrounding county ought to just enact a ban on these events. The students are damn lucky nobody got killed, although there is at least one girl who had to have her face stapled together again because some ****head beaned her with a beer bottle. They are extremely lucky that nobody in the stores they broke into and looted was armed and prepared to shoot.
Drop one dumbass that's trying to assault you with a beer bottle and it's highly likely that the other 7,999 idiots will want to find somewhere else to be.
It was really sad to see this initially fun, peaceful event become so violent.
It's happened countless times before. Import a bunch of irresponsible idiots from all over the state...including high school students...and the end result is inevitable.
This was my last block party as an undergraduate student and I have never seen this type of behavior. Way to go, for a small group of idiots to ruin it for everyone.
I would challenge the "small group" theory based on the presented evidence. It was a large group of idiots, including the people who didn't disperse when ordered to do so, the people cheering the idiots assaulting the cops and burning stuff, and the idiots who thought this whole thing was just cool.
They are obviously not used to facing consequences for their actions. If my information is correct, earlier in the year there was a flash mob/rave/whatever at one of the libraries on that campus where thousands of kids packed into the place like sardines and then started jumping off different levels of the library into crowds, etc. Why the university did not immediately come down on that like the iron fist of stalin is beyond me, but it's clear that they set a bad precedent.
EDIT -- found what I was thinking about:
http://breezejmu.org/2009/12/07/rave-draws-hundreds-to-east-campus-library/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-iSum_wGpE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvGlvK4ldE8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O81TXZUKUo&feature=related
Nathan_Bell
04-13-10, 07:58
My smartassed response. Get some of these http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_india_chili_grenades a few Black Cat Fire crackers and start lobbing them in. :D
Serious note. These parties have become institutionalized riots and must be pushed down to safer levels. Go the route that Columbus did for a few years during Michigan games. Have the fire trucks ready and let it be known (unofficially of course, one must maintain plausible deniability) that the first group to start destroying property will feel the hoses. Not many large groups of people destroying property those years.
I feel bad for the guy at the end of that video. He was trying to be a vice of reason and got grabbed. However I also think the officers had no way of knowing that at the time. If he didn't do anything wrong the rest of the time hopefully the video will keep him from getting into trouble.
LockenLoad
04-13-10, 10:11
More force, and severe charges for the people throwing the deadly missiles,(make a few college degrees have a felony conviction on them) because I believe that's what a beer bottle thrown with intent is. I thought the guy at the end of the one video caught a bad break, but I am of the mind once stupid crude starts, I should leave and let the police handle it(not there you don't get arrested), although I have never been privy to a riot.
kaiservontexas
04-13-10, 12:55
Whatever happened to just hanging out and getting laid?
College... Smart educated folks. :rolleyes:
Drop one dumbass that's trying to assault you with a beer bottle and it's highly likely that the other 7,999 idiots will want to find somewhere else to be.
I don't know about that one. just gas'em, if you can't breathe you can't fight.
We need more riot control vehicles in this country, I know it's not popular after the 60's to spray people with water hoses, but if given the choice I'd take a hp hose to the chest over a bean bag. And it's safer for both sides.
I always thought WWII type flamethrowers would be effective crowd/riot control tools.
Between this and the snowball/police car incident, JMU is going to start getting a reputation as the problem child of Virginia universities.
They do have hot women though.
More force.
I would challenge the "small group" theory based on the presented evidence. It was a large group of idiots, including the people who didn't disperse when ordered to do so, the people cheering the idiots assaulting the cops and burning stuff, and the idiots who thought this whole thing was just cool.
What I meant by small group were the people that initiated the throwing of bottles and other projectiles. It started with those few individuals and led more idiots to follow. I was at ground zero when this all happened. As I was walking to the gas station there were six HPD officers trying to break the crowd up. They stated that the landlords were requesting that they shut it down. There was about a 50 foot gap between myself and the other side of the crowd and they were not letting anyone through. After the officer explained why they were breaking up block party, I shook his hand and thanked him for doing his job.
I will admit, that I was initially confused as to why they breaking up a peaceful even that I have attended for four years. So myself and my brothers began to leave when someone in the crowd started a chant. Next, another chant followed by beer cans being tossed at officers. About 10 minutes into the chanting there were approximately six beers thrown at the officers; luckily, none of the officers were hit. One officer instructed all six of them to leave while the crowd cheered and the Red Sea no longer was parted.
I assumed the officers gave up and let the party go on as they have done in the previous years. So I then walked to my intended destination to a friend's town house on that street. To my knowledge they have never tried to break up a block party that I have been to; however, they do write some citations if you step into the street or you're underage [I have never been carded as this was a rarity until last semester]. I enjoyed myself for about another hour until I saw more officers, this time with numbers and full riot gear. This alarmed me as I have never seen anyone in full riot gear with shields.
I knew it was time to leave so I asked the officers if they were going to break up the party. They confirmed my assumption if I should leave and I did. After I left and started walking home I could see beer bottles and tear gas being exchanged and was glad I was out of there. Did that tear gas do its job as swarms of people began to run away.
More force.
They are obviously not used to facing consequences for their actions. If my information is correct, earlier in the year there was a flash mob/rave/whatever at one of the libraries on that campus where thousands of kids packed into the place like sardines and then started jumping off different levels of the library into crowds, etc. Why the university did not immediately come down on that like the iron fist of stalin is beyond me, but it's clear that they set a bad precedent.
EDIT -- found what I was thinking about:
http://breezejmu.org/2009/12/07/rave-draws-hundreds-to-east-campus-library/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-iSum_wGpE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvGlvK4ldE8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O81TXZUKUo&feature=related
Once the police got word of the flash mob, they blocked all the entrances to Library and did not let any one else in. After about a half hour if I remember the DJ stopped the music and everyone peacefully dispersed. The idea was copied from UNC Chapel Hill as stated in the Facebook event.
Another scenario is when ODU tried the same thing; however, this time officers used force and sent tear gas into the library. The tear gas did its job, but rushing thousands of people out of a couple entrances suck.
The reason I believe the flash rave at our library did not become violent was because to my knowledge, everyone was not intoxicated. This is not an excuse to start a riot, but I believe this was a huge factor this past weekend.
Between this and the snowball/police car incident, JMU is going to start getting a reputation as the problem child of Virginia universities.
They do have hot women though.
Yes, this is not helping JMU's reputation at all; luckily, I have already committed to a job this summer. The bad thing is, JMU is such a friendly place to be, compared to growing up in Hampton Roads. I do not believe where I live is a bad area, but it is not as friendly compared to JMU. When I was a freshman and would see ipods, cell phones, credit cards, etc laying in open cupboards at the gym, I thought these people were crazy. Never in my life would I leave anything of value to me so open for anyone to take. I had my wallet in a locker during football practice and my own teammates broke the lock, stole my money and folded my clothes back up.
Another example, when you're at a party people people introduce themselves, offer you their beer and welcome you into their apartments. Countless times I have seen people spill beer on each other and laugh it off, whereas, back at home you step on someone's shoe and they want to take your head off. I don't want say that this place is perfect, I'm just pointing out that this is not a good representation of JMU on a daily basis.
On a good note, the women here are definitely hot with the best ratio I could have ever imagined.
Dear Students:
Let me first acknowledge that many of you did not attend springfest on Saturday. To those of you who were involved, your collective behavior was an embarrassment to your university and a discredit to our reputation. No one is opposed to some fun on a beautiful spring weekend, but public drunkenness, destruction of property, and threats to personal safety are unacceptable outcomes. Yesterday's events reflect poorly on your character and were demonstrable evidence of less than sound judgment.
As a university community, we care about our neighbors. Unfortunately, the events of this weekend do not demonstrate that concern.
To mitigate the negative consequences of these types of situations in the future, we will be conferring with students, property owners, law enforcement, including the Virginia State Police, government officials and others.
Linwood H. Rose
President
This email was sent to us the next day and posted on our homepage.
I have my opinion on this and it will run counter to what you may think, or others on this forum. But since my undergraduate degree was at UofO in Oregon, and I have seen the realities of this first hand, I would say no I don't think the police should have used more force then they did.
Here is what's going to happen next year:
A heavy police presence will be apparent prior to the party, and may actually shut the original party down forcing people to a new location. Meanwhile all of the people that enjoyed last years chaos will be planning to recreate the event. They will start "flashing" up in areas starting fires at parties, and messing things up trying to stoke the fire if you will. Police will respond in force.
The Next Year?
Increase the violence on both sides...
I realize this is pessimistic but I watched what was essentially a "cold" or a better term would be "non-lethal" war between college students and police that continued to increase in violence on both sides every year. I know that some officers on this site will disagree with me, but I have Riot Squad officers that have conceded this point to me, it is kind of like a game. A really intense version of rugby, where both sides kick the shit out of each other then hold back till the next year waiting.
My biggest suggestion to the officers is never allow parties to get this big to begin with. But with the politics of Universities this is a hard thing to do, as they contribute a lot of money to local communities. Notice in the above article that they state that the "trouble makers" weren't from the University itself. This is a calculated political move to insure that the University doesn't get a bad name, or suffer any sort of repercussions for the party.
College kids get drunk. They go insane and are very likely to go mob crazy in the presence of law enforcement. The key is breaking up any largish gathering as soon as possible, thus keeping the groups spread out in different locations not in a mob of 8,000 drunken hooligans.
Be happy there are no kids in emergency rooms with rubber bullet wounds to the skull, and hope that the police will start talking to the University tomorrow to insure that next year a party of this magnitude is not allowed to take place.
I don't know if its fair to say break these parties up. The block party is usually scheduled around alumni weekend and when you get alumni and current students in town it becomes a 1,000 - 2,000 person crowd which I do not see a problem with this the past couple of years. On the other hand, I do see the point that if a party does not get this big there is no way for it to get out of hand, as it did.
You are totally right about the students moving it last minute to another location. This is what happened during Spring Fest on Friday. The party was supposed to be in one location, but was changed last minute because the residents received notices earlier in the week that the party will not be tolerated. The party was basically moved across the street and everyone had a good time. Most of the people there were JMU students and when officers started to break the party up around 5:00PM everyone left, peacefully.
It will be interesting to see what happens when I come back during alumni weekend. I hope that there is a solution without totally getting rid of block party.
Why the university did not immediately come down on that like the iron fist of stalin is beyond me...
Poor metaphor there, JW...
The college degreed future of America.
...and future 2nd Lieutenants. :eek:
Video of a little different reaction to a kid at University of Maryland yesterday. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajR6Fga8tsw&feature=player_embedded
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=708&sid=1933026
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/video-shows-university-maryland-student-beaten-county-police/story?id=10362033
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/12/AR2010041204377.html?hpid=topnews
twitch1706
04-14-10, 12:24
I recall hearing that the article about Springfest that made it into the Washington Post mentioned something about how the fact that Fox Hill didn't allow kegs (starting this year) could have contributed: In years past there were thousands of drunkards, with plastic Solo cups. This year, there were thousands of drunkards with beer bottles. I'm not trying to justify the mob's activities, but have you tried to throw a Solo cup? It doesn't work. With thousands of people present, people felt secure by a thin veil of anonymity... "If I throw this Bud at the cop over there, I can run away and never be caught!"
I've spoken with firemen who were present. From them, it sounded as if things started off with people randomly throwing empty beer bottles off of their decks when they were finished drinking them. This inevitably led to lacerations. Fire/EMT called in, but couldn't get to the injuries because the mob started heckling and pelting the servicemen. This led to the police being called in; the snowball started here.
I feel that HPD's actions were well warranted. 8,000 rowdy drunk college kids and 200 police? If things had gotten more out of hand and the police had not employed riot control we could have had severely wounded, if not dead, police on our hands. They were just doing what was necessary to stop the destruction of property and make it home safely to their families.
I'm embarrassed to be attending college here in Harrisonburg since I unfortunately get grouped in with JMUers; I'm tremendously glad I don't go to JMU.
I'm embarrassed to be attending college here in Harrisonburg since I unfortunately get grouped in with JMUers; I'm tremendously glad I don't go to JMU.
That's unfortunate and you should represent whatever school you attend which I assume is EMU.
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