October 6th, 2003
Mayhem erupts on hilltop
Dumpsters, car torched in drunken homecoming riot; 45 face charges
Free Press Staff Writer
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Posted on 10/06/2003 6:42:17 AM PDT by Rightone
October 6th, 2003
Free Press Staff Writer
MANKATO — Brian Boothe said he felt like he was standing in the middle of a war zone early Sunday morning near Minnesota State University as fires burned around him and bricks flew through the air at police officers.
“I just looked around me at all the students, thousands of them, cheering as they threw bricks and bottles and rocks at police,” said Boothe, an MSU senior. “There was fire everywhere, and everyone was drunk, and I just looked around and thought, ‘What are all of you thinking? I can’t believe this is happening.’”
What began Saturday night as a homecoming party of 200 people in the parking lot of Monks Place, an apartment complex near campus, turned into a riot by 1 a.m. Sunday, involving between 2,000 and 3,000 people and 160 officers from 41 agencies.
Franklin said police didn’t gain control of the area until after 4 a.m.
About a dozen injured people were treated at Immanuel St. Joseph’s Hospital, four officers reported injures, and 45 people were arrested and face charges ranging from disorderly conduct to third-degree riot.
“The alcohol controlled the behavior,” said Director of Public Safety Jim Franklin.
Franklin said about 250 people were involved in riot-related activity. The rest of the people were spectators.
How it began
Police said the trouble began at about 10:30 p.m. Saturday, when two officers responded to a disturbance at Monks Place. Police said more than 200 people were drinking, jumping on cars and rocking vehicles. The officers were greatly outnumbered and couldn’t break up the party, so they retreated and waited for additional officers to arrive.
Boothe said he went to Monks Avenue at about midnight where he heard a riot had broken out. By then, the crowd had grown to about 500 people and many of them were students, he said.
Shortly after, the crowd moved across Monks Avenue from Monks Place to the parking lots of Campus View apartments, where many people, including students, became violent. Fistfights broke out, a vehicle was turned over and set afire, trash containers were ignited, fences and signs were torn down and destroyed, and windows were smashed out of several vehicles in the parking lot.
Boothe said crowds surrounded vehicles traveling on Monks Avenue and threw bottles at their windows. A hit-and-run collision also was reported, but police did not have details Sunday afternoon.
Authorities said by 1 a.m. the mob had grown to more than 2,000 people, who were crowded arm to arm in the parking lot. Police had to retreat to a nearby parking lot and wait for enough officers to arrive to handle the crowd.
“When police backed off, the students were so excited because they thought they had defeated the cops,” Boothe said. “The crowd didn’t seem angry at all. It was just about sticking it to the man.”
About 160 officers congregated at about 1:30 a.m. and started moving into the crowd in waves. Many of the officers were dressed in full riot gear with guns and nightsticks drawn, witnesses said. A State Patrol helicopter circled above shining light on the area for police.
“When the students saw the police coming, it was like they went crazy,” Boothe said. “Kids were throwing bottles and things at police and yelling all kinds of things at them.”
Myron Medcalf, MSU student and editor of the campus newspaper, The Reporter, said he watched the events unfold from midnight to just after 3 a.m. Medcalf said he didn’t become afraid for his safety until police started using pepper spray to gain control of the crowd.
Medcalf said police were using night sticks, shooting rubber bullets, spraying pepper spray and using police dogs on those who would not disperse. Franklin denied that police shot rubber bullets and said he was unaware of officers using their night sticks.
Medcalf said he was inside an apartment in Campus View when police began spraying pepper spray into apartment building hallways.
“That’s when I really got scared — it felt like I had needles in my throat,” Medcalf said.
Franklin said college-age people were standing on the roofs of Campus View apartments throwing bricks and rocks at police below. Franklin said pepper spray had to be used in the building to make people stop throwing things.
Medcalf said students were trampled in the crowd and one college-age woman was having difficulty breathing. Franklin said the crowd would not part to let in emergency vehicles, so an armored car was used to get to the woman.
“When the officers got out of the armored car, people were still pelting them with bricks and rocks when we were trying to help their fellow student,” Franklin said.
Student reactions
“The scariest part of the whole thing was that no one seemed to care,” Medcalf said. “Students weren’t scared, they weren’t angry, they weren’t upset. They just did it to do it.”
Boothe said many students thought that because they outnumbered police, they could do whatever they wanted.
“Police were pleading with students, and a lot of the officers seemed really afraid,” Boothe said. “A lot of kids were taunting police ... It was surreal. It was a complete mob mentality. They all went nuts.”
MSU student Laura Kleckner said she saw students roasting marshmallows over the burning car. The owner of the car hadn’t been identified by police Sunday.
“It was so exciting, everyone was cheering,” Kleckner said. “I might have been cheering, too. But it is kind of sad that there were people getting hurt.”
“Yeah, but it was still really exciting,” said senior Christy Nelson. “We can say that we survived the riots of 2003.”
MSU junior John Peterson was walking through the crowd at about 1 a.m. when he got hit in the face with a fence post. The large wooden post scraped his face, causing him to bleed. Still, Peterson stayed to watch the riot until after 3 a.m.
“I don’t know, I just had to watch,” Peterson said.
Peterson’s friend, MSU sophomore Jim Martin, said he was at the riot on the University of Minnesota campus after the hockey game in late March. Martin said the MSU riot was a lot like the one at the U of M.
“It was pretty close to this, only there were a lot more students at the other one,” Martin said.
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"If it feels good - do it" liberalism.
Now, make them live in their mess. Don't clean it up. Make them do it. If they want to live in their own filth, so be it. It's the only way they'll learn.
(FYI: Mankato was the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder for much of her formitive years).
And it wasn't even ABOUT anything.
This is the result of failing families and 'public edgukashun'.
Yep. Scratch the family part. It's been replaced by "The village."
Unbelievable.
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