UMass/Amherst Lives Up to its Reputation as 'Zoo Mass'

MassNews.com ^ | May 6, 2003 | By Izzy Lyman

[fight_truth_decay]

An end-of-the semester celebration at UMass/Amherst morphed into a violent mob scene over the weekend.

The Chief the Amherst Police Department said yesterday that a pre-graduation party, hosted near the University of Massachusetts and which attracted over 1,500 students, became a "riotous situation."

"What began as a series of parties developed into a full-fledged riot," said Scherpa.

Captain Mike Kent, a 22-year veteran of the Amherst police department, agreed. Kent described the melee as "the worst disturbance I have ever seen and the most violent."

The so-called Hobart Hoedown, held on Hobart Lane, began to spin wildly out-of-control late Saturday night when students hurled broken pieces of rock and beer bottles at passing cars and at police officers who donned riot gear.

The Amherst Fire Department had to extinguish several fires, including one which burned down a Pioneer Valley Transit Authority bus stop. Forty-five arrests were made, and there were 15 reported injuries among the Amherst cops. Chief Scherpa calculated the cost of police overtime at $20,000. As of Sunday evening, glass fragments still covered the long entryway to the Puffton Village apartment complex (where the block party had also taken place) and the smell of smoke lingered in the air. Also advertising the results of the debauchery was a smashed-up police cruiser which remained parked in front of the Amherst police station.

Police Praised by Residents

During the press conference, one student complained that the police - who used pepper spray and shot two rounds from a "spongebob gun" to break-up the crowd - had made the situation worse. But a homeowner defended the actions of the law enforcement officials.

"I had people on my lawn, I was cursed at and I was at risk of being hurt. I think they [the police officers] were wonderful," said Marcia Howard of Hobart Lane.

Chief Scherpa also defended his officers. "I'm really proud of the men and women that showed remarkable restraint." He made it clear, however, that he was not against campus partying.

"It's not that we're trying to stop parties, but we're trying to have responsible parties," he said.

Added Scherpa, "When they get out of control, a lot of times, people giving the party call us, because it gets out-of-control, not of their choosing."

The Hoedown was a heated topic of discussion at the umassdrunks.org web site. The site famously posts "drunken photos" of what appear to be inebriated undergraduates and features message boards which allow participants to chat about local bars and parties.

UMass Chancellor John V. Lombardi issued a statement harshly criticizing the actions of the students.

"The university is appalled to learn that our community suffered another example of disgraceful behavior in the area of Hobart Lane in North Amherst involving, among others, a large number of University students," said Lombardi. "We will take prompt and appropriate action regarding any members of our community found to have engaged in behavior contrary to the university's code of student conduct."

One property manager told the Daily Hampshire Gazette that there was a solution to the problem of widespread under-age drinking in Amherst.

"Raise the drinking age to 25," said Robert Baker of the Crestview Apartments.

Given this weekend's meltdown, some, even in this liberal community, will think it's an idea whose time has come.

[fight_truth_decay]

Students hurled broken pieces of rock and beer bottles at passing cars and at police officers who donned riot gear.

Capt. Mike Kent described the melee as "the worst disturbance I have ever seen and the most violent."

[fight_truth_decay]

http://www.umassdrunks.org

WARNING: Some pictures may offend.

[Timesink]

Nothing happened here that couldn't have been stopped by a few NON-plastic bullets.

[tet68]

Sounds like a party school.

Note. The Tips for Women was rather interesting,particularly for the women's responses.

Do they really talk like that?

[eternity]

According to some students the police overreacted. DUH!

[pabianice]

The fruits of open admissions.

[pabianice]

BTW, take a look at the Amherst chief of police. Where else but Amherst would they elect a 4' 11", 105-pound woman as chief of police? Sure would throw a scare into most drunken men. I guess affirmative action and political correctness are more important that police and citizen safety.

[fight_truth_decay]

There were 45 arrests, including 10 for inciting to riot.

Fifteen Amherst police officers and four UMass police officers were treated for injuries, Police Chief Charles Scherpa said, and all been released. Scherpa said he was not sure if any students were injured.

Fire was set to a Pioneer Valley Transit Authority bus stop and an evergreen tree at the entrance to Puffton Village. Students demolished a stone wall at the entrance to Puffton Village and lobbed the rocks at police equipped in riot gear. Several cruisers were heavily damaged.

Heightened police presence

One thing that was different was the presence of police patrols in cruisers and on motorcycles early in the afternoon, Burke said.

Students "came in droves on buses and five or six to a car. By 9:30 or 10 it had already started with people throwing bottles," she said.

"When I saw the bottles flying, I couldn't believe it," said Felicie, 51. "When I was a student, I was in politics at the University of Puerto Rico. There were riots, but it was for an ideal, a cause."

She added that students in Puerto Rico would run when police came. "These people kept" partying.

Burke said the students played games. "They would football-tackle this tree," she said, pointing to an arborvitae that had been damaged. "They were urinating by the wall of the recycling area."

Felicie said one student started to urinate on her front steps. "'You are not doing it here,' I told him."

Burke was sympathetic to the police but said they needed earlier reinforcements. She described officers in riot gear marching abreast down the road. Some people called them "pigs" and threw bottles at the phalanx of officers. Once the police passed by, the crowd would throw bottles at their backs, she said.
http://www.gazettenet.com/05062003/news/5681.htm

[fight_truth_decay]

``If someone has a complaint about the actions of UMPD, they would file the complaint with us,'' she (University of Massachusetts police Chief Barbara O'Connor) told Cutting in an e-mail. ``Of course, anyone identified as being part of the riot would then be charged.''

Grad student,Cutting, whose newspaper - The Minuteman -student newspaper, is run by the conservative Silent Majority student group, said he was particularly incensed because he has long been a supporter of police on the campus.

``I am so conservative, it's not funny. That is why I'm so offended by this,'' he said.

``I never expected to be in danger of the police.''

Amherst cops defend rubber-bullet barrage.

[fight_truth_decay]

"It was a block party, a barbecue," said Ben Sayre, 23, a senior from New Jersey.

[Jonathon Spectre]

One miserable machine gun could have cleaned this all out.

When's the last time a bunch of potheads got violent at a party and rampaged out of control?

[eternity]

A mutual friend of mine retired last year from the Amherst PD. After twenty something years he had enought. Who can blame him.

[kdmhcdcfld]

Thanks...now I remember why my wife and I don't want our daughter attending UMass, even if she gets a full scholarship!

[jrun]

Although many readers feel that the best solution to this problem would have been injuring people, any intelligent person knows that the chaos would have escalated to an even higher level if measures of that sort were taken. Instead of the police "herding" the massive groups of calm people around and yelling threats earlier in the day, they should have controlled the group by attempting to establish perimeters. As the police chased the students around Hobart and threatened arrest if they did not leave, where did they believe the people would go? Over one thousand drunk people were supposed to find a way out of Hobart at the same time? The police created an extremely hostile environment and had no control over the groups of people, a problem that they are trained in. After seeing some of the actions of the officers, I do not believe that any policy or procedure was being implemented when the riots began, the officers were attempting to fix their grave mistake of bombarding a large group of intoxicated people, getting them mad, and giving them no where to go. The Amherst Police Department felt that they needed to roll into Hobart as a brigade and break up the chaos, I'm sure in retrospect the Hobart Hoedown looks less like chaos and more like a tea party in comparison to the Puffton Riots.

[ejrobbie34]

there are some things in the papers, and on the news that dont really tell the true story of what happened. first off, the hobart howdown is an annual event that happened every year before finals. I do not disagree that there should be police at these types of block parties, however i do disagree with thier tactics in breaking them up. police were at the hoedown all day long, making thier presence apparently clear, however the parties continued. The riots were not started by the partygoers, but by the police themselves. everything was peaceful until the police decided to show up in riot gear. did i mention that they showed up in riot gear, in a fleet of some 35 officers, BEFORE THE RIOT EVEN HAD STARTED!! kids see this piglet army forming on the street, and what do you expect thier reactions to be!! They divided up into units, and drove masses of needless to say drunk college kids into the street for which they set perimeters(they wanted to contain the riot they so surely expected!!)Once the police started beating kids and pepper spraying them for no reason,all hell broke loose. Im proud to take up arms against police brutality and stupidity. Im completely sober when im writing this, so imagine how i would react drunk!! thats exactly what all the heroes( those arrested for inciting a riot) thought when they started the war. another thing... to Marcia Howard. You are not a stupid person, so why did u knowingly decide to live in Hobart, where you are the only permanent resident, amongst a mass of college kids. It's your own damn fault for getting yourself into this mess. what moderately intelligent middle aged person would do this. i leave you all with this... wait till next year, "can't nobody hold me down"... see ya at the pig roast!!

[killer27]

Hey there pabianice, apparently your not aware of rank and its structure. Why would a chief handle a drunk when she has a fleet of 6 foot tall officers at her disposal to handle people like you,I mean drunks. And if you had any intelligence you'd realize "it's not the size of the dog in a fight but the fight inside of the dog" that counts. By the way she's the Cheif of the University of Massachusetts Police Dept, lets not make that mistake again. GOT IT!

[pabianice]

Hey there pabianice, apparently your not aware of rank and its structure. Why would a chief handle a drunk when she has a fleet of 6 foot tall officers at her disposal to handle people like you,I mean drunks. And if you had any intelligence you'd realize "it's not the size of the dog in a fight but the fight inside of the dog" that counts. By the way she's the Cheif of the University of Massachusetts Police Dept, lets not make that mistake again. GOT IT!

Right. UMass Police, not Amherst. That aside, you don't have a clue. A chief -- or any other top head-banger -- has to lead by example. Appointing a midget woman to be chief of police says, "Political correctness is more important to us than the safety of the public or our officers." Wrong message. UMass remains a clueless atavism.

[Umass student]

First, the Hobart Hoedown, is not hosted by anyone, the students congregate at this location. This seems to be a common misconception.

What happened at the 2003 Hobart Hoedown was much more complicated than a simple confrontaion between the plica and student body, conviently coined 'a riot'. In light of the universities historic budget cut's, the adminstartion has attempted to save face. To do this they have initated a 'zero tolerance' act for underage drinking. It has become protocol for Umass police officers to arrest any student seen with an alcohlic beverage who is not 21. This has vastly altered the lives of many students. Everybody at college drinks, and no one wants to be arrested. This is why the Umass student body is so upset.

Regarding the evening in which the disaster at hobart occured. It is my contention that there would problems if the cops did not get involved. By involved, i mean showing up in full riot gear and immediatly breaking up the party for no apparent reaon. There were no problems prior to the cops arrival. The weekend before at Uconn during a similar spring weekend there was a much different outcome during a simlar scenario. At their largest part, aproximatly 3 time that of Hobart, there was no riot and no one got hurt. Now either Umass students are just completly fucking crazy, or the police handeled the situation differently. The police did handle the sitaution differently. They did not show up in riot gear, they did not get gung-ho and try to break up a dangeroulsy large party. Rather, they mingled with the crowd and kept event safe.

If the Umass police were not mocho assholes, they could have done the same. Instead the ruched the party, in antagonizing fashion, in full riot gear. The then threw grenades (flash bangs), pepper sprayed indiscrimanltly and shot students with rubber bullets. You would be pissed if you were shot with a rubber bullet too. They did not follow precedure, they did (no im not lying) arbitrarily beat the shit out of random students.

This is not the fault of the Umass student body. Umass students are not abnormaly violent. However, the Umass police department is. The reason this party turned into a riot was because of the unproffesional fashion in ehich the Umass police handled themselves. It is also the fault of the umass administration for forcing the police department in to this position.

Brendan Lattrell, Umass Student.

[enuffsaid]

Brendan,

If your gonna talk trash, and talk educated, then get your story straight and get the facts correct. First of all It was not Umass Police at Hobart, it was Amherst Police. Umass showed up later in the night to assist but by then the worst was over.
Second the cops didnt just get involved because they felt like it. You said it yourself...years back the cops never did anything and all went well. Years ago kids would party and go home an nothing ever really happened. In the past 5 years Hobart has continued to end in disaster. Drunks from Hobart fighting and getting stabbed or other weapons used, Drunks from Hobart walking home and smashing the windows or mirrors out of vehicles as they walked home. Drunks from Hobart starting a bondfire and burning whatever they can find, Drunks from Hobart 85% of which are underage. should i stop now. Now lets play a little game Brendan...in those scenario's what thing is consistent......DRUNKS FROM HOBART. So now we have come to today...and if these events continue to happen at the same event year after year the police have no choice but to try and stop the event. Here is the real kicker, if things like this happen at an event and the cops know about it and let it continue and something happens...they are responsible. Look at it like this, if your drunk ass walks out into the street drunk and gets hit on your way from Hobart...who are your parents gonna file a lawsuit with. I gonna bet its not the other kids you partied with. Its gonna be Amherst Police and the University for letting an event like this knowingly occur. You catching on yet!
So cops wearing riot gear did not start this war. Cops wear a bullet proof vests every day. That doesnt mean they expect to get shot. They didnt show up expecting a riot, but they have seen how a large crowd of spoiled babies reacts when they cant get their way before, and they came prepared. "Arbitrarily beating", if you are at a large event and the crowd is termed a riot, anyone in that crowd is involved whether you throw shit or not, and just being there makes you a target. And if you are at an event and the cops with sticks, rubber bullets, shields, pepper spray start to push through trying to disperse a crowd and you get close enough to get hit instead of going home...you deserve to get beat and I hope you did.

Lets review now...Amherst not Umass
Police because of the past
A riot is a riot/if your their-look out
Umass Students are babies
Grow up and get a clue!!

ENUFFSAID