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by Kyle Little
Free food! Pepper-spray bullets! Inflatable bouncy castles! Smoke grenades! Fresh apple cider! Horrific alarms! The World Series on a Mega Screen!
On Wednesday, the University of Massachusetts provided a wonderful display of irrational behavior, and Red Sox cheer. Approximately 3000 people joined in Southwest for the expected celebration, fourteen of which were arrested for “failing to disperse” and one more for disorderly conduct- compared to the nine arrested in Boston, where the game and real destruction took place.
Photos and video from the riotous behavior in Boston show fires, cars flipped over and sporadic pandemonium down Boylston Street. Arrests ranged from assault on a police officer to DUI’s. Police are dressed in their usual nighttime gear, faces exposed and guns in holsters.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines riot as “a situation in which a large group of people behave in a violent and uncontrolled way.” The key word is violent, a word that accurately describes the police and not the students. If anybody rioted on Wednesday, it was the police cast upon the UMass student body.
The University of Massachusetts has had a number of “riots” in the past for a variety of reasons, each of them an unorganized assembly in the Southwest residential area that occurred after the provocation aired on television. In previous situations, police were forced to take action against “dangerous” students screaming and throwing toilet paper. Toilet paper! The nerve of those pesky kids.
Close observation of video footage from Wednesday night shows UMass students becoming excited as the Red Sox won the World Series. When Red Sox closer, Koji Uehara, threw the final pitch by the Cardinals, Matt Carpenter, students erupted. Screaming and singing ensued, one man even climbed a tree. The University sounded it’s dispersal alarm, trash cans were thrown and toilet paper decorated the skies while UMass, local and state police fired pepper spray bullets into the crowd, repeating things like “Smile for the dean’s office!” or “Go to jail, or go home.” Many students even tried to go home, but were chased by officers in SWAT gear.
In 2004, Emerson College student, Victoria Snelgrove, was hit in the eye by a pepper-spray “projectile” fired by Boston Police. She later died from her injuries. The Boston Globe reported police said that the pepper-spray balls, propelled by a compressed air system similar to those used in paintball guns, are to be considered “less than lethal.”
Police at UMass were quoted claiming they intended to use a “hands-off approach” in dealing with the situation, although video evidence blatantly shows trigger-happy soldiers attacking without provocation. The students’ responsibility cannot be entirely dismissed. These types of “riots” occur at universities across the United States, and the growing trend of drunken destruction is prevalent.
While most schools try to curb these situations from occurring or offer alternative environments to celebrate, UMass enables students with free food and a gigantic screen.
The nature of the entire evening is frightening. To classify the student body as riotous is entirely inaccurate, and it was defined as such before it even occurred. Alternative venues (Mullins Center, a barren football field, Student Union, Athletic Fields, etc. etc.), or some actual police work could potentially lead to successful celebrations.
What happened to the basic police perimeter, maybe a few undercover officers if desired? Why do the UMass police have enough arms to defeat a small country, and why is it authorized to be used against defenseless (maybe noisy) students without provocation? Is this what they mean by police-state?
The same size crowd of 3000 or so students gathered at the University of New Hampshire for a “riot” of their own. For five to ten minutes, the poor police officers were forced to protect themselves from flying Coke bottles. The following day, the talk around town was not of a chaotic, violent mess, but of the professional manner in which the police handled the massive amount of students.
Video footage shows students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst crying out in pain and fear, rubbing their burning peppery eyes and hiding from randomly fired bullets (“projectiles” to be politically correct) while smoke intensified confusion, and a piercing alarm told them to run away, as if they weren’t already.
The actions of UMass police could easily be cast off as what they consider “routine” police behavior, if they were provoked. If there were cars flipped, fires burning and students fighting back, maybe an alarm would sound to scare the living hell out of them and send them home. None of those things happened in Amherst. Some students tried to uproot a tree, and a bouncy castle was destroyed.
The weaponry enlisted by the University to deal with a situation in which they supported far exceeds the necessity of the situation. These weapons are not intended to disperse a crowd (especially an unarmed one); they are intended to subdue violence.
The University of Massachusetts wholly condoned Wednesday’s so-called rioting. There were no steps taken to prevent the situation, it was more along the lines of, “If you can’t beat them, entertain and feed them!” Then, shoot and literally beat them. There’s something happening here, but what it is ain’t exactly clear…
