History
So waaay back when at JMU...back when Greek row included fraternities, they held a big alumni weekend. They had bands on Greek row, fenced off part of it where they would have alcohol and would card people to get in, had a constant police presence, and kept everything orderly. At some point, State and University attorneys decided having any sanctioned parties like this on campus was a bad idea. Thus, parties like this were moved off campus.
Even when large parties happened off campus, they were kept under control. In former-President Ronald Carrier's (or 'Uncle Ron', as we was affectionately known) administration, he would show up towards the end of the afternoon and hang out for a little bit. He would then say something like, "Alright, everyone have one more drink, and then we'll all go home." And everyone knew that at that point, they had had their fun and it was time to go.
Flash forward to the fall of 2000. The block party that happens every year the weekend before classes start had been growing and growing. Well it finally got out of hand and rioting started. Now, on the riot scale, this was pretty minor (as was the one this past weekend). Things were thrown, people were injured, and there was property damage. It made national news and was a black eye on JMU's reputation. Things were done to help curtail what made the party spin out of control and the years went by without a mishap.
So now along with the pre-classes block party in the fall that had the previous 'riot', there has been an 'alumni weekend' block party in Forrest Hills that goes on usually two-three weekends before the end of classes. There is a part now dubbed 'Springfest' which occurs in Fox Hills on Friday. Apparently residents of Fox Hills were threatened by their landlord that they couldn't have Springfest, so the Friday event from what I understand didn't happen. So on Saturday everyone that had come into town because of the Springfest Facebook invitation came to the Forrest Hills block party. Up until this year it was contained to 2,000-3,000 people. Last year, people filled probably 3/4 of the grassy area, the sidewalk along Village Lane, and a few people would be up on the hill.
You Gotta Fight For Your Right...To Get Tear-Gassed?
The Facebook events had been spread around. People had been invited. Various forms of alcohol had been purchased. Reports are that 8,000 flooded the Forrest Hills/Forrest Hills Manor area, and I don't doubt that number. YouTube videos will show just how ridiculously packed it was. There was no walking room even on the street and even the hill was pretty packed.
So where did this influx of 5,000-6,000 come from? There are approximately 17,000 full-time students at JMU. So that means that last year if 2,500 students showed up, that's just under 15% of the students (if they were all JMU students). This year, that number would have been around 47% if all of the attendees were from JMU. That's ridiculous. So let's say there was a massive (and probably untrue) increase of 10% more of current students coming to the block party. 25% of 17,000 is 4,250, which again is a ridiculous increase. I would put the number from JMU more around 3,000-3,750. That number would be mean that less than half of the block party attendees were from JMU. Just some of the colleges I've heard had people come were Virginia Tech, Maryland, West Virginia, Penn State, Radford, Columbia...and many more. There were even people from California that came to the block party. That's not to mention the kids from the area that came out (who are pretty famous for causing trouble at JMU parties).
One father of a JMU freshman said her daughter had hallmates that had as many as six visitors staying in their rooms coming for the block party. Another girl said you could tell who was from JMU because any girl wearing jeans was obviously not a JMU girl, because they always wear sundresses to the block party. You could also tell the guys from out of town because their mouths were hanging open because they weren't used to seeing the likes of JMU girls in sundresses. And these people seemed to be a majority of the group that was there.
All afternoon there were calls to get emergency assistance for people at the block party, but rescue personnel couldn't even get in, and if they could, they didn't have room to get the person out. People drank and partied as usual.
Around 4pm, the Harrisonburg Police Department sent in a few officers to try to get people to vacate the area. They got pelted with beer cans/bottles, so they left before being injured any further.
This about the time that things went downhill quickly. A couple girls got up on an electrical box in the middle of the crowd. Some valiant guy decided that they shouldn't be up there, so he jumped up to try to get them down and that's when people started throwing things at him. It started with cups, but when he wouldn't get down it progressed to bottles and larger objects. Once he got down, some other less-than-intelligent people decided it was a great king-of-the-hill game to see who could last the longest. So people would jump up on the box just to get pelted. A giant circle was created around the box and anyone who entered the circle immediately got things thrown at them.
At about 6pm, a text went out to students saying to vacate the Village Lane area. The problems with this is that not everyone carries their cell phone to block party, not everyone checks their phone frequently, it takes awhile for those messages to get to everyone, not everyone is opted in for text message notifications, and half of the people there weren't even JMU students. I also heard that this was a signal to some people that it must be a great party so they decided at that point that they should head to Forrest Hills-I'm really hoping this was just a rumor. This is also about the time that about 200 police offers from around the region showed up, many in riot gear. The police started announcing over a megaphone that people need to leave.
A few idiots thought that they had the right to drink openly on public property and didn't want to leave, so they started throwing bottles and rocks at the cops (for every person throwing things, there were at least two trying to get them to stop). Some geniuses also lit a couple dumpsters on fire. This is when the cops started pepper spraying, launching tear-gas into the crowd, and moving forward. There were also reports and supposed video of rubber bullets even though the HPD denied having used them. At this point, most people had already left after either seeing the cops or getting the text message telling them to leave. So the crowd was probably down to about 1,000 when the tear-gas started flying. This created widespread panic and chaos and basically everyone left. Up until this point, many people who were left were just standing in amazement at what was going on and you can watch YouTube videos of the crowds scattering when the first few founds of tear-gas are sent into the crowds. After this, few people were left and the ones that stuck around were arrested. Another reason I don't think many JMU students were left in the crowd of 60-100 at the end is that if someone sees tear gas, who is more likely to stay: someone who lives a few blocks away or someone who lives a few hours away and has nowhere to go?
There's also video of people trying to surrender or get around the cops to leave and then getting pepper sprayed or tackled to the ground. In my opinion, if someone is leaving (since that was the point of the show of force), let them go. I realize you don't know what they're going to do and they've been there that long so they have no excuse, but there's no need to attack anyone if they are trying to leave peacefully. There are other videos that people complain about an unneeded use of force, but after being attacked for so long, I say they used a lot of restraint and was surprised that didn't happen more.
How to fix it and what went wrong
First, to all of you who brought in all your friends from all over the East Coast...never do that again. This is a JMU party and should stay that way. It's our reputation on the line and was tarnished this past weekend because it got out of hand.
Second, the HPD needs to have a constant presence. They can say all they want that they had the same force there throughout the day that they've had in the past, but the fact that people were walking around in the street with cups tells me they didn't. HPD needs to be there and ticket anyone who steps off the sidewalk with a cup in their hand, just like they normally do. If a fight breaks out, get in to stop it immediately. If anyone tries to fight you off, make them an example so that it doesn't get out of control. I realize they tried to break it up peacefully, but jumping to riot gear will polarize peoples' fight or flight response. So some took off running in any direction, while it angered the rest and they decided to stay and fight.
Third, if you see police in riot gear...leave the area. Immediately. Plain and simple. Attacking a police officer is stupid, irresponsible, and lands you in jail. Complaining about the cops when you live a middle-class life is ridiculous. Just because some guys in a rap video or movie said, "F the police," and you thought it was cool, doesn't actually make it cool. It makes you stupid. There was an interview with one guy at the block party who was talking to someone else asking, "what have the police ever done for you?" I have no other response than that person doesn't deserve to live in this country. Period.
The End of Block Party?
No. I don't see how that would ever happen. But how can this be fixed for the future? The biggest issue is containment. Rope off an area and only let certain people in. Also, cops need to be a constant and strong presence throughout the day. Up until this year, if anyone stepped off the sidewalk with a cup in their hand, they were issued a citation. This year, you couldn't even tell where the sidewalk was there were so many people. Things need to be kept orderly from the very beginning. Students also need to police each other and try to keep this from happening again.
Depending on how official you want to make it, you can have a certain number of tickets allotted to each townhouse. Once the tickets are gone...they're gone. You can even charge a few bucks for each ticket to help pay for porta-potties, drinks, any damages to property, cleanup, etc. If you have thousands of people who are drinking a lot, they're gonna need to use the bathroom at some point. There were a lot of problems this year with people trying to break into townhouses to use the bathroom. Porta-potties people. Seriously.
On the other hand, if you want to hold an event on campus you can basically just follow the revive the jMubilee event that was held a couple years ago. Using SGA funds, fundraising money, and donations, you can hold a giant event on Godwin Field. Lots of free food, free (non-alcoholic) drinks, have live performances from local/JMU bands and a capella groups, and a variety of games. Invite the community and all JMU students. jMubilee of 2008 was held the afternoon on the last day of classes and had around 1,600 people attend, but it can be held on a Saturday a couple weeks before if need be. If you want any other info on this let me know...I can tell you exactly what you need to do. There are even t-shirts already made and ready to sell. The intent was to bring the JMU campus and Harrisonburg community together for a day of fun, which I think is exactly what the city needs right now.
Positives to come of this?
While nothing could really make up for the rioting, there are three things that happened after the block party that show that most JMU students don't condone what happened. To start off with (even though it was planned before the rioting happened), JMU Greek Life helped cleanup all the trash that was left behind, which I believe they do almost every year. So to all those who look down on all the fraternities and sororities...please thank them for at least cleaning up your mess. I also heard a report about a couple of people recycling a lot of the glass bottles and cans.
The next good thing that happened is that within hours of the rioting, a JMU student came up with a great idea to help raised money to help pay for the damages to property: sell t-shirts and give the proceeds to pay for repairs. The original t-shirt group is up to over 5,000 members. Here's another design that is saying they'll also donate the proceeds, but is much smaller. There are also impostor shirt creators that say nothing about raising money to repair damages and are trying to profit from this, which is pretty awful in my opinion.
The final thing I wanna talk about is possibly the most helpful and long-term. A few students decided to start a group to organize community service around the city. I hate that it took what happened to motivate people to do this, but I'm glad it finally happened. Dukes Helping Harrisonburg already has over 2,000 members and organized a 50-person project yesterday. The official kick-off meeting is this Tuesday, so I'm anxious to hear what their long-term plans are.
So again, this was terrible and should not be repeated in any manner, but most students and alumni were horrified about what happened and many are acting to fix what happened as best they can.
President Rose's Response
Dear Students:As far as what JMU can actually do to the arrested students remains to be seen. Because it happened off campus, only those arrested can be disciplined by JMU, and even then the students will have to go through the official process of Judicial Affairs. Otherwise, the school risks lawsuit for not following official procedure.
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
Mayor Kai Degnor's Response
Kai is a JMU grad and I'm sure hates that this happened because it reflects poorly on the school he attended. He already had it bad enough coming from JMU (someplace that a small, but vocal Harrisonburg crowd hate) and being a Democrat in Harrisonburg, so this didn't help. It also works well for him because he can recommend the most severe punishment he wants and put all of the responsibility on JMU. For a full discussion on the responses, check out HBurgNews. Current SGA President Candace Avalos also publicly apologized at the city council meeting.The incident yesterday at the Springfest between partygoers and police is unfortunate and disappointing. There is simply no doubt that enough of this crowd did, indeed, get out of hand and create an unsafe situation – indeed injuries, property damage, and dumpster fires – even before police arrived. Left alone, this behavior could have easily continued and escalated. I commend officers for exercising their responsibility to disperse the crowd to restore a safe environment. That said, the videos of multiple tear gas canisters landing amongst the students after they already began fleeing the scene raise concern.
Preventable measures must be taken to keep events, especially planned and advertised open and unmonitored drinking parties, to grow to such a large crowd in a small residential area. This is the second time in a decade this has occurred. With foresight and planning, it should be the last.
I’m collecting all the information I can, and I have asked for a report at Tuesday evening’s council meeting so that we can understand the facts and begin exploring where to improve our policies. As this event is reviewed, I call on all community leaders, including student leaders, to be responsible for their constructive participation in the discussion about how to move forward.
–
Mayor Kai Degner
City of Harrisonburg, Virginia
Injuries
Dozens were taken to RMH for injuries. One person was flown to UVA and two were taken by ambulance for more serious injuries. There were also several officers with mainly minor injuries and a K-9 unit reportedly had a minor injury.
Arrests
Of the people arrested, 15 were JMU students and 15 were not JMU students. Out of the eight people with the most serious charges (so far), only one was from JMU. This list is courtesy of the Breeze. Investigations are ongoing so expect more arrests in the coming weeks.
The following people face charges from HPD for felony malicious wounding by mob and misdemeanor assault or battery by mob:
Dominick Angelo Brown, 21, Manassas
Sherman Thomas, 23, Vienna
Kalvin Lamar Jackson, 24, Chantilly
Nathaniel Gillom, 20, Herndon
Aubrey Humphrey, 21, Fairfax
Dameon N. Lyles, 20, Chantilly
The following people face charges from HPD:
Justin Lyons, 24, Harrisonburg
-charges: assault on a law enforcement officer and participate in a riot with a dangerous weapon
-non-JMU student
Japheth E. Rawls IV, 21, Harrisonburg
-charges: profane swearing or intoxication, failing to leave from an unlawful assembly, assault on a law enforcement officer and participate in a riot with a dangerous weapon
-JMU student
The following people are charged with profane swearing or intoxication and failing to leave from an unlawful assembly (from the Harrisonburg Police Department and Virginia State Police):
Bobby D. Washington, 20, Washington
-non-JMU student
Mark E. Stephenson, 24, Arlington
-JMU student
Brendan A. Hassett, 20, Williamsburg
-non-JMU student
Timothy P. Chapman, 22, Harrisonburg
-JMU student
-Chapman is the former editor-in-chief of The Breeze but ended his position on April 1. He was not involved with any of the Springfest coverage.
Steven T. Moxham, 20, Harrisonburg
-JMU student
Juan S. Infante, 20, Chantilly
-non-JMU student
John J. Underwood, 21, Abingdon, Md.
-non-JMU student
Ryan F. Gallagher, 21, Downington, Pa.
-JMU student
Kevin W. Yarmosh, 23, Reston
-non-JMU student
Jeffrey D. Small, 21, Harrisonburg
-JMU student
Travis A. Basso, 22, Morgantown, W.Va.
-non-JMU student
Ryan M. Byrne, 20, Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.
-JMU student
Samuel A. Johnson, 19, Richmond
-JMU student
Timothy E. Davis, 21, Columbia, S.C.
-non-JMU student
Anne T. Birkhead, 22, Harrisonburg
-JMU student
Gabriel A. Walman, 22, Harrisonburg
-JMU student
Brett M. Weiner, 19, Mansfield, Mass.
-JMU student
One charge of failing to leave from an unlawful assembly from HPD:
Matthew C. Frazier, 21, Harrisonburg
-JMU student
The Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control also arrested four people (ages and hometowns were not provided):
John Jorgen Sutter
-drunk in public and unlawful assembly
-JMU student
-Sutter is one of the co-news editors of The Breeze. He has not been involved in any of the Springfest coverage for the April 12 or April 15 issues, and he will remain uninvolved in The Breeze’s coverage.
Christopher Ryan Dashiell
-assault and battery of a police officer and unlawful assembly while committing a criminal offense
-non-JMU student
William B. Dale
-drunk in public and unlawful assembly
-JMU student
Jared Lee Roberts
-unlawful assembly and underage possession
-JMU student
Media Coverage
DNR: Good Time Gone Bad
DNR: News Travels Fast
DNR: Police: More Arrests Likely
DNR: Last Disturbance 10 Years Ago
DNR: Weekend Riot Fallout Begins
WHSV: Students Clean and Recount the Block Party Aftermath
WHSV: JMU Students Raise Money For Block Party Repairs
HburgNews: HPD Investigation Moves Forward
HburgNews: Mayor, JMU Present comment on Village Lane riot
HBurgNews: Police use tear gas and pepper spray to disperse block partyThe Federalist: Riot Breaks Out At Springfest
Associated Content: Is Social Networking the Cause of the Riots, or Just a Medium?
The Washington Post: Crowded off-campus party degenerates into 'war zone'
CNN iReport: Civil Disturbance results in a riot at James Madison University
That's all I have for now...I'll update with any other major happenings that come from this.
No comments:
Post a Comment