64 Arrested at Kent State Riot
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| Sun, 04-26-2009 - 8:13pm |
Video posted on the Internet shows students hurling furniture and street signs into the flames on Saturday night as a SWAT team in riot gear converged on the crowd. Kent police said the party grew violent after one reveler was arrested and students began pelting officers with bottles, bricks and rocks.
It was the first violent clash between Kent State students and police in years. In 1970, four Kent State students were killed by Ohio National Guard troops during a campus protest of the invasion of Cambodia.
“They were burning pretty much everything,†said police dispatcher Rosemarie Mosher. “They were throwing stop signs on the fires, they were throwing chairs, couches, tree branches. Basically anything they could get their hands on.â€
At least 64 students were arrested, and several officers suffered minor injuries, Mosher said. Students gathered on front porches at about 8:30 p.m. and began spilling into the streets on the unusually warm evening.
When officers ordered the crowd to disperse, students built piles of couches, suitcases and other debris and lit them on fire. There were at least four fires blazing in the middle of the street, Mosher said.
The students led the police down the road starting fires, said Ben Wolford, an editor at the campus newspaper who witnessed the riot.
“They were going into their houses and bringing out office chairs,†he said. “Someone said they threw a flat-screen TV on the fire.â€
Students who lived in nearby houses threw objects from windows to feed the flames. Video shows students huddled on a roof, escaping into a second-story window as a line of about 25 police, their faces masked by plastic shields, forms near the flames.
Choruses of boos were captured on video as firefighters doused the fires, and students cheered as others quickly ran back into the street to spark more.
Officers tried to chase students away from the street and shot them with paint balls and pepper spray, Wolford said. Many students ignored orders to leave, hiding behind houses and peeking out to see what was happening, he said.
“When police first started making their little charge down College Avenue, they yelled, ‘Get in your houses or we’ll arrest you,’†Wolford said. “When one student stayed on his lawn, two officers sprinted at him and just kind of grabbed him forcefully and arrested him.â€
On Sunday morning, splotches of paint stained nearby houses, and shards of glass littered the grass and pavement.
“The cops were being nice, and two minutes later we were shot by rubber bullets for no reason,†junior Jamie Farrell told the university’s student newspaper.
The riot was mostly over by 10 p.m., when more than two dozen police and fire vehicles surrounded the area.
Kent State spokesman Tom Neumann said the students’ behavior is inexcusable and the university is awaiting more information from police.
“Obviously, things got a little bit out of hand,†Neumann said. The university has not received any reports of injured students, he said.
Wolford said most students believe the violence probably could have been avoided.
“I think if they just blocked off the street, let kids have that road to party on for that night, it would’ve just been a party and people would’ve gone home,†he said.

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Why does partying become violent?
Tear gas breaks up wild Kent State party
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/04/26/Tear-gas-breaks-up-wild-Kent-State-party/UPI-81571240778612/
The end of the school year probably can't come soon enough for police who deployed the riot squad to break up a wild party at Ohio's Kent State University.
Tear gas and rubber bullets flew Saturday night in response to bottles and rocks hurled by students who were whooping it up during College Fest, an annual off-campus street party that marks the home stretch of the academic year, officials said.
"I expected the cops to be walking around making sure no one got hurt," freshman Ross Eisenberg told the Cleveland Plain-Dealer. "I never thought they'd be shooting tear gas."
Police told the newspaper they locked down all of the buildings on campus before moving in to break up the alcohol-fueled revelry. By that time, students had built a huge bonfire that included sofas and other furniture.
There was no immediate word on arrests or injuries.
Kent State College Fest Riot Fire
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpCoLx3CgbA
Kent State Riots 2009 college fest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfBZpuqIfTw
In my neck of the woods......
100 arrests at UConn Spring Weekend
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/04/26/100-arrests-at-UConn-Spring-Weekend/UPI-18381240777215/
More than 100 arrests were made during the University of Connecticut's traditional three-day Spring Weekend, campus police said Sunday.
UConn police Maj. Ronald Blicher said in a statement there were 111 total arrests between Thursday and early Sunday morning as thousands of people took part in Spring Weekend parties and activities, The Hartford (Conn.) Courant said.
Included in the final arrest tally were 47 arrests made at the Storrs, Conn., college on Saturday night and Sunday morning alone.
Among the crimes cited by arresting officers were reckless endangerment, breach of peace and criminal trespass, along with a variety of weapons and narcotics charges.
UConn police accounted for 90 of the 111 total arrests, Blicher said.
The Courant said the arrest total for the 2008 rendition of the University of Connecticut student tradition was 51.
What a difference 39 years makes.
Protesting a war vs arrests for burning furniture and rioting?
These students were wrong, but sheesh on shooting at them with anything. No issue with busting them, but I have trouble with taking aim at a kid.
Sounds like both students and police should be doing some self-evaluation.
Full length fiction: worlds undone
"You have no power over my body..." ~ Anne Hutchinson
These students were wrong, but sheesh on shooting at them with anything. No issue with busting them, but I have trouble with taking aim at a kid.
I don't have a problem with taking aim at young adults, with non-deadly ammo, if they're trying to burn down the place.
Apparently the police tried to intervene, as the article states, but they kept on starting fires, running ahead of the police doing so. Adults throwing things out of windows to make larger fires....
What if you lived in the area and people were setting it on fire?
Where would you draw the line? And what would you have the police do to break up a riot?
zz
Based on the story, they were burning things in the road, so there was no imminent threat to lives. They certainly all deserved to be busted and perhaps expelled, but shot at? Nope,
Full length fiction: worlds undone
"You have no power over my body..." ~ Anne Hutchinson
I can see using pepper spray, but actually shooting things at them? It sounds like something that would do more to provoke and escalate than disperse.
If a student died, they would face scruntiny I doubt they wish to endure. It just is not called for in that situation.
If there were not enough police, there are certainly ways to call for assistance. The idea is to protect life and minimise damage, and it seems to me taking aim is not consistent with that goal.
Full length fiction: worlds undone
"You have no power over my body..." ~ Anne Hutchinson
"You think you know, sir!" ~ Cornflake Girl ~ Tori Amos.
Full length fiction: worlds undone
"You have no power over my body..." ~ Anne Hutchinson
"students that age should not be treated with kid gloves just because they're young."
I agree. (It's ironic a child of 12 can be tried as an adult but college aged students are looked upon as "kids".)
They were throwing bottles
all it takes is one big puff of wind to make it out of control.
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