Homecoming turns into a 'drunken street brawl’

In the aftermath of this weekend’s Homecoming havoc, Queen’s University officials say they will examine the future of the annual event. Police and university officials vowed tough sanctions against those involved in an out-of-control street party that attracted between 5,000 and 7,000 people. During the mayhem late Saturday and early Sunday, a car was overturned and burned, an ambulance was blocked and police and other officials were pelted with bottles. Asked whether Homecoming should be held next year, Janice Deakin, the university’s vice-president and dean of student affairs, said, “All options are on the table.” In response to a question about whether it might be cancelled, she said she couldn’t rule this out. “We will be looking at all options,” she repeated. George Hood, the university’s vice-principal of advancement, gave the same answer when asked whether the entire weekend’s events could be scrapped. Kingston Police Chief Bill Closs praised his officers’ restraint in the face of what he called “a drunken street brawl.” Police and fire crews were pelted with bottles and other objects as the party raged out of control. One black officer was the target of racial epithets shouted from the crowd. Closs said his officers were “subjected to the most vile and disgusting behavior that a police officer could possibly encounter.” The 100 Kingston Police officers were outnumbered approximately 50-to-1 by the crowd of more than 5,000, many of whom were very intoxicated. Police laid 200 liquor act violations and laid 19 criminal charges. Thirty-five people ranging in age from 17 to 30 were arrested and spent the night in city police cells. Closs estimated the bill for extra policing would be in the range of $60,000. That doesn’t cover police time that will be taken to prosecute all those charges. Those arrested included a mix of Kingston residents and out-of-towners who came for the party. But Closs wouldn’t blame the latter for the weekend problems. “The people from out of town came to Kingston to take part in a drunken brawl,” he said. “The catalyst for all of this is Queen’s Homecoming and students who host the drunken parties and I refuse to offload the responsibility on people who come in from out of town.” “I can state that I am extremely disappointed and appalled by the behaviour of the people on Aberdeen Street,” Deakin said. One of the main initiatives the university tried this year was a free concert featuring the Tragically Hip’s Rob Baker and others at the Miller Hall parking lot but it was lightly attended. City councillor Floyd Patterson, who represents the district and was touring the area until 1 a.m., said the pilot project was a flop. “I would say, if they thought this pilot project would keep the students in one place and stop them from migrating out to the streets, it was an utter failure,” he said. Although the worst was confined to Aberdeen, he said students blocked traffic, smashed bottles and otherwise disrupted other areas around campus where non-students live and said Queen’s needed to get a grip on the situation. “This sort of behaviour is disgusting and angering and insulting to the permanent residents of this community and Queen’s needs to go a long way to addressing this,” he said. The university will co-operate fully with police in prosecuting those identified as engaging in criminal behaviour this weekend, Deakin said, and will also conduct its own investigation. It can also levy internal sanctions, such as fines, community service, suspension or expulsion against students and will be pursuing those options, Deakin said. The student code of conduct, by which all undergraduate and post-graduate students are required to abide, specifically singles out massive block parties like this weekend’s as ground for punishment. “[Students] should also bear in mind that compliance with this code implies non-participation in disturbances such as street parties which have been formally prohibited by the Senate, adherence to the laws governing the possession and/or consumption of alcoholic beverages and generally maintaining the reputation of the university,” the policy reads. Sanctions against students are taken by a special committee of the Alma Mater Society and the Society of Graduate and Professional Students. Students can appeal those rulings to the university administration. “It will be interesting to see how the AMS chooses to deal with these issues,” said Closs. Deakin was on the scene of the massive street party on Aberdeen and praised city police for their restraint even as they were under assault by bottle-throwing revellers. “I think the police were incredible,” she said. “In the face of everything they had to deal with, they did an outstanding job.” Closs said police, led by Insp. Brian Cookman, were under orders to use a “minimum” amount of force and that without co-operation of students, the only way they could possibly have restored order to the streets was through the use of a riot squad and weapons such as pepper spray and Tasers. The difficulty of clearing the streets in such a way is that it leads to panic, and students would be in danger of being trampled in a rush if they were dispersed. Police would also be loath to disperse the crowd because there was nowhere to disperse the mob to except the surrounding streets where they could create more widespread mayhem. Closs will be meeting with university officials in coming weeks to discuss the weekend incidents. He made it clear he’s not happy with the increasingly lawless Homecoming events and the burden that falls on his force to police them, the cost of which will be borne by city taxpayers. He said if Homecoming continues, he would like to see a policy of, for example, mandatory expulsion of any student convicted of a criminal act or liquor licence infraction within a certain area of the student neighbourhood during Homecoming. “We will be meeting with the university, but I have to say I am extremely disappointed in what happened on Aberdeen Street as a result of Queen’s Homecoming,” he said. ielliot@thewhig.com

How a Homecoming celebration disintegrated into violence

A year of planning and a massive police presence failed to prevent an annual Homecoming street party Saturday from spiralling into a near-riot in which officers and firefighters were pelted with beer bottles and a parked car was rolled and torched. Queen’s University, along with city and police officials, had hoped to prevent a repeat of last year, when 5,000 people attended an out-of-control street party on Aberdeen Street. In hopes of giving students something safer to do, the university this year staged a free, big-name concert on campus Saturday and police brought 100 officers to the Aberdeen Street area to try to keep any partying off the street. But they were no match for the thousands of young people who teemed onto Aberdeen and intersecting William Street, as Whig-Standard photographer Mark Bergin and I soon found out. We witnessed beer bottles exploding, fireworks shot from verandas, a car set on fire and broken glass everywhere – so thick, in fact, that it took several minutes to walk from one end of Aberdeen Street, a short avenue, to the other. Kingston Police Chief Bill Closs would later describe it to one of my colleagues as “a drunken street brawl.” The evening had started off civilly enough as a series of small front-yard parties, before ballooning into mob violence. Here’s a chronology of a night that went out of control: Saturday, 8 p.m.: About 100 police arrive in full force in the Aberdeen Street area of the student ghetto. About one-quarter of them have already worked 24 to 30 hours over the last 48 hours and many look strained and tired. In the morning, four illegal keg parties on Johnson and Collingwood streets and University Avenue were shut down and 56 people charged with alcohol-related violations. (By early Sunday, we will later find out, more than 200 people face charges for Liquor Licence Act offences.) Two rented white cube vans full of riot gear sit on Aberdeen Street and several marked and unmarked cruisers slowly circle the neighbourhood. Dozens of officers stroll the streets. Some chat amicably with partygoers on their lawns while other, more stern-faced officers concentrate on keeping those consuming alcohol off public property, keeping pedestrians off the streets and ensuring people aren’t drinking in public. Carrying a travel mug, I’m stopped twice by police who sniff the contents of the container. At the corner of Aberdeen and Johnson, University of Waterloo engineering students Greg Packard and Cory Thorpe drink beer on the front lawn of the home of their friend, Mike Rakowski. All day, the police have made it clear they aren’t putting up with any law-breaking and have said anyone who steps off private property will be issued a fine for drinking in public. Packard and Thorpe are hoping for a wild night, but with the strong police presence, they wonder if the party will be curtailed. “Last year there were 5,000 students on the street, but there are so many cops tonight,” says Thorpe, frowning. “It’s not going to happen.” Rakowski, a Homecoming veteran, is more confident. “It’s going to be a gong show,” he says. “If the cops start pushing, the people are going to start pushing back.” 8:45 p.m.: One of the first of thousands of beer bottles is lobbed onto upper Aberdeen Street and explodes on the pavement. A half-dozen uniformed officers stride towards the vicinity. Others are trying to sternly order people to stay on the sidewalks, but the front-lawn parties are spilling over the curb. It’s hard to stay off the road. The stench of marijuana thickens in the air. More bottles smash on the ground, prompting cheers. 9 p.m.: Staff Sgt. Chris Scott, the number two officer on the street tonight, sits in his cruiser watching the crowd at the corner of William and Aberdeen. So far, things are looking good. Police have been patrolling the student ghetto since 10 a.m. and there are now double the number of officers who were here last year. And people are listening to them and behaving fairly well for the most part, he says. The concert in the Miller Hall parking lot, off Union Street, has been sold out, so Scott is hopeful a lot of people will go there instead of partying here. “This is better than last year, I would say. I’m seeing a lot less open liquor,” Scott says. “It’s early, but we’re encouraged by [all] that. We’re hoping if we use a consistent, fair approach the kids will accept it.” 9:30 p.m.: At the concert, a sedate crowd of a few hundred people stands in front of a stage where Stripper’s Union, the new band of Tragically Hip guitarist Rob Baker, is playing. A few dozen students queue patiently at the gates to get in. 10 p.m.: Back on Aberdeen, about 1,000 people walk the sidewalks and drink on lawns. Now, police are having a harder time keeping people off the roadway. The police cube vans have left. Chants of “Ole, ole” rise up all over the street. On a lawn on upper Aberdeen, Carleton University students Natalie Langdon and Kaitlin Dubblestyne stand on a lawn talking to friends. The two travelled to Kingston for their first-ever Queen’s Homecoming and are having fun, but Langdon is a little nervous about the growing crowds. “It’s pretty crazy,” she says, flinching as more bottles are smashed in the street beside her. She sympathizes with police and says they’ve been good to the students so far. “It’s hard for them to keep a handle on the students,” she says. 10:15 p.m.: The crowds are spilling onto the street and two mounted police make a final effort to push people back onto the sidewalks. One young man dances a jig beside one of the horses and is immediately bent over a police car and ushered away. The crowd presses around, chanting, “Ole, ole.” 10:30 p.m.: The crowd rushes the streets with shouts of “F**k the police.” More than 3,000 are now on Aberdeen and William streets and the police retreat. At the concert, meanwhile, no more than 1,000 are standing quietly swaying to Metric. Dozens of students line up at the gates, but several are leaving. “Everyone’s f**king dead,” one young man says to his friends as they turn for the exit. A group of girls also leaves just minutes after entering. “Let’s go to Aberdeen,” says one of them. 10:45 p.m.: On Aberdeen Street, a group of young men overturns a parked car and a dozen people jump on top of it, zealously stomping it, crushing it, breaking glass, swaying drunkenly and waving beer bottles in the air. The crowd around them again chants, “F**k the police.” The car will be rolled several times before the end of the night. As Whig photographer Mark Bergin wades into the throng around the overturned car, a police officer shouts after him, “If you go back into that crowd you’re on your own. Take care of yourself. We can’t come in to get you out.” Firecrackers fly above the overturned car and the scent of gasoline is pervasive. But the crowd continues to push toward the crushed car and those who play King of the Mountain on top of it. Queen’s students Brendan Moore and Phil Mahncke watch the spectacle from a yard nearby. Moore is sure this party is going to get even crazier. “I think potentially there are going to be too many people for them to control,” he says. “When the concert ends there will be too many people,” adds Mahncke. 11 p.m.: Sometime before 11 p.m., groups of eight to 10 police officers form human barricades at each end of Aberdeen and William streets. They let people out, but no one is allowed in. A few officers in riot gear are standing nearby at attention. There are now between 5,000 and 7,000 people here. House parties on Earl Street have also spilled onto the road. Hundreds of people line the police barricade on Earl in hopes of getting inside. Up on the west end of William Street, an ambulance backs off University Avenue. A teenage boy is talking to a police officer behind the vehicle. His friend has consumed too much alcohol and has alcohol poisoning. She’s lying half-conscious and unable to move in the middle of the melee at the William and Aberdeen intersection and needs help. Two paramedics pull a stretcher from the ambulance and stare into the crowd. Staff Sgt. Scott is shouting into his radio. He needs backup – now. He’s furious. “I don’t know how long the city is going to put up with this,” he says. “We spent days on dialogue, we attempted to work with them. All we asked is for them to enjoy the parties, to keep the streets clear and this is what happens.” A few minutes later, the two mounted police appear and head toward the thick of the crowd. It clears, begrudgingly, and the paramedics and Scott follow. Fifteen minutes after the ambulance arrived, the young woman is found. Her body is like a rag doll as it’s strapped to the stretcher. Another young woman is treated for cuts to her feet. The procession cuts quickly back through the crowd, which snaps closed in their wake. As Scott follows the young, sick girl back to the ambulance, a group of young men snarls at him and rains curses at his back. Once on University Avenue, he shakes his head. “That girl was passed out in the middle of that mass of people. You saw how long it took for us to get to her,” he says. “What if someone was ... gagging on their own vomit or had fallen from one of those balconies?” He then nods at the police barricade at University Avenue. “Now we sit back and we don’t let anyone else in the area and let the situation defuse and let them leave,” he says. 11:30 p.m.: Bridgett Chapman is walking gingerly along William Street away from the crush of the crowd and toward the line at William Street’s east end. The New Zealand native, who’s here for the Homecoming party with her University of Western Ontario boyfriend Tom Douglas, is wearing thin-soled shoes and has a sliver of glass in her foot. She’s never seen a bash like this one. She’s having fun and thinks this is a great party, but she’s glad this isn’t her hometown. “It’s insane,” she says. “I would hate to live here.” Douglas wonders if the police presence has spurred the crowd to act out, but both he and Chapman are relieved the police are here. “It would be crazy if the police weren’t here – maybe too crazy,” Chapman says. Midnight: Two fire engines enter the bottom of Aberdeen Street to deal with the overturned car, which is leaking gasoline, but are forced back by a barrage of flying beer bottles. The stench of gasoline is now thick in the air. At the police barricade at Earl and Aberdeen, a young man bursts through and is quickly tackled and thrown against a wall by two police officers. Adrian Fung, a sober-looking Queen’s engineering student, watches. “They grabbed his throat,” Fung says as the man is arrested. He was here last year for this party. He thinks the stronger police presence this year has played some part in inciting the violence. “They’re being way too tough. If the police were looser, the students would be looser, but because they are tensing up, the students are tensing up.” Fung agrees that the police should be present for safety reasons, but doesn’t believe they’ll ever be able to stop the Aberdeen street party. “It’s a tradition,” he says. “Queen’s spirit is really high and they don’t let traditions go very easily here.” 12:30 a.m.: George Hood, Queen’s vice-principal of advancement, stands with two of his staff, Hilary Sirman and Richard Seres, at the east William Street police barricade. The trio – all Queen’s alumni themselves – wear the yellow hats of the some 55 campus security staff and volunteers. Hood, who’s in charge of planning Homecoming, has worked with the police, the city, the university’s student government and others for the last year to prevent this night from unfolding as it has. “This wasn’t exactly what we had in mind,” Hood says, frowning. He and Seres say they’re angry that students are calling the Aberdeen Street party a tradition since it’s only been happening for four years. “It’s not a part of Homecoming and people who call it a tradition are trying to create something to hide behind,” says Seres. He points out that Homecoming is about welcoming back the university’s alumni and says it’s unlikely that many alumni are here tonight. He suggests most of the people here aren’t even Queen’s students, but students from other universities. In fact, about one-third of the partygoers I interview at the street party aren’t Queen’s students. Hood interjects. He says that doesn’t let Queen’s students off the hook. “I don’t buy the excuse that these aren’t all Queen's students,” Hood says. “If they aren’t Queen’s students, then they’re staying with Queen’s students.” As Hood talks, a beer bottle smashes behind Seres, making the group jump. “This is so frustrating. We pulled out all the stops and did everything we possibly could,” he said. “No one can be proud of this.” The concert was supposed to be the big buffer, but it didn’t work. All three bands – Stripper’s Union, Metric and Billy Talent – are big-name acts. The students got to see a show that normally would cost $100 for free, Seres says. About 4,000 tickets were distributed, but no more than 2,000 appeared to attended the concert. 1:30 a.m.: The drunken crew wobbling on top of the overturned car is still being cheered on by the crowd. A dozen youths stomp on it, kick it and try to rip off pieces. One muscle-bound youth parades its muffler system up and down Aberdeen like a flag. Others carry pieces of its plastic bumper and smash them against a curb. Two youths who are smashing the car start a new chant: “Set it on fire! Set it on fire!” At the corner of Aberdeen and William, a mail box is slammed to the ground by a drunken, stumbling young man. Across the road, another youth man clutches a stop sign under his arm. A naked man wheels around William Street on roller blades to whistles and cheers. Nearby, Queen’s students Josh Guthrie and Aryan Kamyab blame the violence in the crowd on the police presence. “What you’re seeing is a reaction to the police,” says Guthrie. Kamyab predicts the party will be even bigger next year as news of it spreads. “I’ve been here three years and year by year it’s going to get worse,” he says. “The police have obviously realized there’s nothing they can do.” 1:50 a.m.: The party is thinning out. A number of police officers venture up Aberdeen from Earl Street and start dragging and pushing people down the road, but they’re soon stopped by the crowd, hurling beer bottles at them. 2 a.m.: Police again start clearing out the crowd; this time from the Johnson Street end. Most people are co-operating, but the party is still out of control around the rolled car. 2:30 a.m.: The rallying cry to burn the car has picked up again. “Burn it! Burn it!” Flames can be seen through what appears to be the hole for the gas tank. A steady stream of beer bottles smashes against the burning vehicle, thrown by some unseen arm. The police move in cautiously and begin clearing a wide circle around the car. This time the crowd listens and moves – reluctantly. 2:40 a.m.: A group of young people grabs Whig photographer Mark Bergin taking pictures of some very drunk students being arrested at the corner of Earl and Aberdeen. “Hey, you’re going to make us look bad,” one young man shouts. Two of the youths grab the photographer as a beer bottle slams into his shoulder. Beer is also poured over him. “You have to get out of here. You are now in personal danger,” a police officer shouts at Bergin, who doesn’t need to be told that twice. 2:45 a.m.: The car is engulfed in flame when the fire department arrives and extinguishes the blaze. The crowd applauds and cheers and promptly dissipates. Several police officers now enter the party and ask people to leave. This time, they meet little resistance. 3 a.m.: Kingston Police Insp. Brian Cookman, who’s in charge of the city’s patrol officers, stands at the Earl Street barricade. A few firefighters continue to hose down the car and a stream of water trickles down the road. The show is over, but Cookman, who has been awake for 72 hours, still has hours to go before he sleeps. He’s exhausted. But, more than that, he’s angry. One of his officers was sucker-punched in the head and others were endangered by drunks throwing bottles. “A beer bottle thrown from a second-story window is going to inflict serious injury or death,” he says. “And I can’t believe the danger they [students] put each other in.” Looking at the officers around him, Cookman says he’s extremely proud of the restraint they showed tonight. “They endured all the taunts, all the verbal abuse, all the projectiles being hurled at them – and for what?” he said. “For trying to keep the peace.” farmstrong@thewhig.com - With files from Mark Bergin

Students repulsed by partying peers

Students cleaning up Aberdeen Street yesterday afternoon said they were saddened and repulsed by the massive block party that turned into a near-riot early yesterday morning. Some 25 student volunteers descended on the two-block stretch of road that was the site of an out-of-control street party the night before to fill trash cans and plastic bags with broken bottles and other garbage. “It’s our mess,” explained Eric Chisolm, who held a shovel while another student scraped glass off the road with a broom to fill it. “Everyone I’ve spoken to feels frustrated that some people would do these sorts of things.” “We feel bad about what happened and we wanted to help clean it up,” said Nikki Punga, who was carefully gathering glass a short distance away. “This is stupid,” said Emma Seaborn of the events of the night before and the cleanup. The stretch of road was literally covered with shattered beer bottles, in some cases to the depth of several centimetres. A city sweeper had cleared a path down the centre of the street early in the morning, but glass and bottle caps carpeted the street on either side and crunched under the tires of passing cars. The cleanup effort wasn’t a formal one but was hastily organized by students phoning, e-mailing and instant-messaging each other to gather on Aberdeen Street wearing heavy gloves and thick-soled shoes. Many bore the fading purple hue to their skins that marked them as engineering students. “It’s our problem,” explained Matt Reid, one of the students who helped pull together the cleanup. “It was bad last year and the city cleaned it up, but they didn’t have any workers here this morning and we didn’t want them to have to do it.” They said events the previous night had spiralled out of control quickly as the crowd rose to as many as 7,000 on the short stretch of street after midnight. “The atmosphere last night was different,” said Anne Keery. “It had an edge to it, it was scary.” She and others denounced the crowd’s behaviour while calling for sanctions against those who were involved. “There’s gotta be something done,” said Dan Piccininni, who joined the cleanup effort yesterday. “I’m really disappointed in what happened here.” He was well away from the party on Saturday night but had seen drunken revellers on other parts of campus behaving badly. “I saw people walking around spitting on cars, and that shouldn’t happen,” he said. The students say most of the people on Aberdeen Street Saturday night and Sunday morning were Queen’s students, although as many as one-third were either city residents with no connection to the university or friends of students who came from other centres for the party. They don’t offer that as an excuse but say the vandalism was done by a handful of people in the thousands who were there. “This isn’t representative of the Queen’s community,” said Chisolm. “There were maybe 20 people involved turning over a car but 5,000 people were watching them and saying ‘That’s stupid, that’s pointless vandalism and destruction of property.’ ” The students didn’t have any solution to disturbances, except to cordon off Aberdeen Street. One of the people helping with the cleanup yesterday was Donni Gauthier, a 1981 Queen’s grad. The roofer and painter picks up beer bottles in the heart of the student ghetto each Homecoming. He had collected more than $600 in empties by early yesterday afternoon. He reflected on how things had changed. “It’s crazy, it didn’t used to be like this,” he said, surveying the littered street. “Guys would drink and have fun, sure, but they wouldn’t destroy stuff. Kids are growing up differently now, attitudes are different now, and it’s sad. “These kids, they figure they can do what they want and their mothers and fathers will pay for it.” ielliot@thewhig.com