Small number of police disperse large number of students 2:30 PM Townhouse quad
The crowd started to gather in the quad area of Townhouse Apartments -- scene of the infamous Blarney Blowout last March -- just after high noon and a constant stream of college aged youth carrying boxes of beer quickly brought the mob to full strength of perhaps 1,000.
North Amherst center 2:00 PM heading towards Townhouse Apartments
At times Meadow Street was a gridlock of cars and partiers
A small number of Amherst Police first moved in around 2:30 PM and pushed the unruly mob out of the quad area.
Many of the partygoers simply moved across the street to a party house on Meadow Street that had also been going strong since probably well before noon.
Partiers start streaming from backyard towards Meadow Street. UMPD officer on left
Crowd is pushed back toward Townhouse Apartments
Around 4:30 PM, after reinforcements arrived, police again moved in to disperse the large crowd numbering in the hundreds packed into the backyard.
Party hardy types left a bit of a mess in the backyard
The responsible tenants of 53 Meadow Street were given $300 tickets and at least one young lady was arrested for an alcohol related offense.
Unhappy tenants holding their $300 tickets
Young lady arrested
And by 5:00 PM it was over. The night, however, is still young ...
Yes, APD may see these two again, before the night is done
Well now... if you didn't know the students were back, you sure did today... esp. in N. Amherst! #zoomass #partyheartytheremarty
— Jorma Kansanen (@JKansanen) September 7, 2013
A 19-year-old UMass student was found dead in their Washington Tower dorm room early Saturday afternoon: http://t.co/mkF0j7zUZx
— Daily Collegian (@CollegianStaff) September 8, 2013
Meadow Street; Gateway to
ReplyDeletethe Retreat
Sheesh Larry. Don't you have anything better to do? This has become an obsession with you.
ReplyDeleteSheesh Anon. Did I get your bad side in a photo?
ReplyDeleteNope. Was not there.
ReplyDeleteAnd the mayhem was?
ReplyDeleteWelcome to The Retreat circa 2015.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is that the badly needed student housing is badly needed on campus, not in a quiet residential area off a narrow winding road.
Mayhem? Preventing Mayhem as a title, I would give you that. But there was no mayhem. Mayhem means violence. This is typical of your over-blown hyperbole.
ReplyDeletemay·hem (mhm, mm)
n.
1. Law The offense of willfully maiming or crippling a person.
2. Infliction of violent injury on a person or thing; wanton destruction: children committing mayhem in the flower beds.
3. A state of violent disorder or riotous confusion; havoc.
I'm taking lessons from the Huffington Post in headline writing.
ReplyDeleteObviously it's working.
Now if you were really sagacious you would have noticed in the original headline "Mayhem" was spelled wrong.
(Hot copy of course.)
If you really want to cover the story that is news, rather than this non-news, you would be covering the student that died at the UMass dorm the other day. Perhaps that's not as newsworthy as the paint on the water tower.
ReplyDeleteThis is what society gets for raising a generation where they were never taught responsibility, had everything given to them, were taught that everyone is a winner and the score doesn't matter. These kids better enjoy killing as many brain cells as they can because when they get handed that diploma they are not going to know how to get a job, nor deal with the real world. Mom and dads basement will be a nice place to live. Wait I forgot with this generation they will simply move back in their room and feed off the niple of their parents.
ReplyDeleteLet's see, the first death of a student at the University just today. The rave party coming up shortly at Mullins where I'm predicting at least one death along a MASH unit of kids needing medial help, and some fair weekend weather in the next few weeks will push the Amherst, UMASS and state police to their limits. The year is starting out great.
So how much did this cost us already? Did the police need to call in extra officers to quell this? Are we paying for extra officers to work both days and nights now? I think we deserve some answers. The bottom line here is 12,000 plus kids with nothing to do on campus. And this is teh first full weekend, give me a break.
ReplyDeleteWally. College kids have been drinking and partying at school for generations. This behavior is nothing new.
ReplyDeleteAnd that makes it okay?
ReplyDeleteI was addressing Wally's argument that kids today are somehow different than past generations. I said nothing about whether behavior of kids now or then is OK.
ReplyDeleteYou are one of the most obtuse people I have ever come in contact with. Is that intentional on your part or are you really that bad?
It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to.
ReplyDeleteThe point is: this behavior -- of having 500 to 1,000 WITH ALCOHOL in one place IS new. At the start of every school year, UMass. used to have giant barbecues and music on the fields which have become soccer fields. IF people were drinking, they smuggled in small quantities. The kids were more low key and it was smaller groups. Now, it's crowd scenes and binge drinking from minute one in Town (not on campus). I think the police did an admirable job of herding the kids and breaking it up before it became a giant fistfight or bonfire. We need to have the University police there, shoulder to shoulder with their Town counterparts. When they start getting overworked, maybe they will make the administration take action and allow the Blue Wall to become a nightclub again.
ReplyDeleteIt's not the behavior, but the difference in attitude, the entitlement, the disregard for authority, the attacking of police officers, it's about cultural differences that happen with different generations. This generation drinks too, but it's everything else I'm talking about.
ReplyDeleteamherst is no different from other college towns...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.annarbor.com/news/crime/72-people-ejected-from-michigan-stadium-during-busy-night-for-police-in-ann-arbor/
"the difference in attitude, the entitlement, the disregard for authority"
ReplyDeleteHogwash! This generation is no different than any other. These sweeping generalizations from a grumpy old man have no basis in reality. They made a movie called Animal House and it wasn't about this generation, but it was sure filled with drinking and obnoxious behavior.
Back in the day...
ReplyDeleteWe partied- but our focus was staying off the police dept (and school officials) radar.
Seems like we had the right idea!
Walter, do you honestly know (a) that the UM death wasn't a suicide AND that the in-your-face attitude that UM has taken toward all things (including mental health) in the past few years didn't help cause it?!?!?
ReplyDeleteI noticed what others may not have -- take a second look at Larry's posted AFD log and note that they did at least three involuntary psych commitments on Monday, before school even started....
Saddest part is that people blame the school. It's not the schools fault. It's not the schools fault that they don't keep children occupied. It's the parents fault. We have families where no one knows what their kids do... That's not my child syndrome.
ReplyDeleteIf parents spent as much time learning how to be a parent and set rules and limits instead of spoiling their kids and letting their children run the household, we'd have college kids who respect authority and strive to live by the laws and look for achievement in life that has reward, not just for participation.
Party? Sure, I did in both colleges I attended. Fun, yes. Disrespect authority in the face of confrontation, no. No one was brought up like that. Disrespect property? No. Disrespect anything that denies them what they are "entitled" to. No, we had parents and teachers that we looked up to and respected.
But then again the smartest eggs in the basket aren't attending a public school in Massachusetts so I guess you get what you get based on socioeconomic circumstances.
As for the moron that thinks Animal House is a way to live life, when the movie came out it was loved because it was so over the top. Actions like that were stories of myth. Today generation X and Y thinks that is how you are actually supposed to act. Where great role models Miley Cyrus influence a generation.
Makes sense they'd look at a satirical movie for direction. They got very little from their parents. And today most concepts of what is right and what is wrong are found in texts and tweets. Common sense is a phrase but there is no shortened way to text it. And if you can't find a way to make your life easier, then it's just something you never bother to experience.
...we'd have college kids who respect authority and strive to live by the laws...
ReplyDeleteI'd say that the problem is that this is exactly the type of college kid that you have -- those who respect (but refuse to fear) authority, and those who are adept at both identifying and complying with the moral code of the community (i.e. "the laws").
The problem is that your authority is not worthy of respect and your community is morally bankrupt -- and these kids are following your "laws" as you observe/enforce them amongst yourselves.
Remember that human society is largely led by example, and that while they will never admit it, young adults (aged 16-26) are largely influenced by what they see their elders doing. This is particularly true relative to the balance of (a) instant gratification versus not, and (b) personal desire/personal benefit versus community desire/impact on others.
So how do the "grownups" act in Amherst? Do they delay gratification? Do they put the wellbeing of the community ahead of their own personal gain? Do they act in a civil manner towards those with whom they disagree?
Been to Amherst Town Meeting recently?!? (I attended once and left in disgust.) This is the behavior you are having mirrored back to you by the drunken college kids.
Yes, you may hiss and boo those who vote against you while the college kids shriek and throw beer bottles, but both are manifestations of the same type of behavior.
The college kids are on the receiving end of a "might makes right" culture where enforcement of the law as a concept does not exist. "Right versus wrong does not exist in Amherst, it's all who you are, and the kids see that -- look at the saga of Gilbreth Manor.
The college kids' exposure to Amherst consists of being treated badly by people whose attitude is "sucks to be you" and when they sense that their own rights under the social code (i.e. "laws") are being ignored or violated, are confronted with a nonchalant "make me" from people secure in the knowledge that they can't.
This is what they (correctly) observe the de-facto "law" in Amherst to be -- and they comply with it.
By contrast, if you had arrested each and every member of the Grandoso family, seized ownership of Lincoln Real Estate's holdings (the equivalent of Enku suspending a student), and otherwise enforced "the law" with the speed & vigor with which you enforce it when a UM student violates it, that'd be a completely different story.
Likewise, if UM employees (including tenured faculty) were summarily fired (and retirees lost their pensions), with no more due process than UM students get, for the exact same type of incivility (even if expressed differently), then it would be a different story.
One need only look at how UM employees (qua citizens) treated Catherine Sanderson to see the hypocrisy in how you expect UM students (qua citizens) to act.
Two other things. First, from Wiki (I know...) is this definition of "respect"(emphasis added):
ReplyDeleteRespect is both given and received. We expect other people to respect us in return for the respect we show them. Respect is also something that is earned by the standards of the particular society in which one lives. Respect cannot be measured as a quantity, cannot be bought or traded, it is one of those things that is earned and built over time, but that can be lost with one stupid or inconsiderate act. One can ask or beg for respect, but only others can bestow us with respect as a result of their perceived treatment by us. Continued caring interactions are then required to maintain or increase that original earned respect.
You can't make them respect authority -- you can make them fear it, and in doing that you are precluding the former.
Second, developmentally, college kids are still largely at the binary "black & white" stage of "right" or "wrong" -- the ability to nuance things comes later.
Hence Larry Kelly making an illegal left turn on an empty street in the summertime is "wrong." So is driving down a sidewalk while drunk out of your mind and throwing beer bottles at the fleeing pedestrians.
If you see things only as either "right" or "wrong" -- and if what Larry Kelly did was OK, then....
Don't complain about the college kids merely observing your observance of "the law" and mirroring it.