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St. Cloud State University
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NUCC broadcasts concern
By Regina Eckes
Published:
Thursday, October 9, 2003
Media Credit: Adam Masloski
Mitch Patterson drops back to pass during a game of touch football Wednesday. Patterson and his friends used the parking lot near an elementary school located in between Fifth and Ninth Avenue by campus as their playing field. Permanent residents and students struggle to agree on issues.
In the wake of the MSU riots last weekend, members of the Neighborhood University Community Council are preparing to keep SCSU's homecoming celebration fun and safe.
"We are actually doing some planning with Public Safety and some other people just to ensure that our house is in order in case we have to deal with any kind of situation, which I hope we won't," said member of the St. Cloud Police Department, Sue Stawarski.
For next weekend's homecoming, the police department is enforcing a multiple "drop day" from 8 p.m. Thursday night until Sunday, in which every officer in the department will be working at some point during the day. Officers from the Criminal Investigation Division and Community Service officers will also be on hand.
University officials want to do whatever they can in their power to prevent the kind of riots that occurred during Mankato's recent homecoming and SCSU's 1988 homecoming. The university wants to deter people from coming into the neighborhood that have nothing to do with the university. NUCC members noted that many people causing disturbances at Mankato and even on SCSU's move-in day this year were not even students of the particular university. SCSU is learning from such past incidences and having extra officials on hand.
"I think we are much better prepared to respond with the appropriate number of officers so the police department can respond to an event that gets out of hand," said the Vice President of Student Life and Development, Nathan Church.
As a result of the events in Mankato and on move-in day last month, NUCC members have become concerned with the choices students are making and are worried students may elicit the same kind of dangerous behavior next weekend. While admitting that they too participated in drinking and parties in college, many said there is a distinct difference between the way they behaved then and how students are acting now.
"Yes we partied, but we did not want to get caught on someone's videotape vandalizing property," city council member Lori Long said. "There comes a point where it is not being responsible any more. People are making choices and there needs to be individual responsibility that is not happening right now."
Church said his job is not to restrict students from drinking, but when students drink to the point that it becomes dangerous, the school and community becomes concerned. On move-in day, Church said he talked to many students living in the neighborhoods and was able to communicate to them about having a good time while being safe. Hours later, many of the same students were so inebriated that they lost control of their party and property and that is how most students received citations or were arrested.
"The police do not confront 15 people behaving themselves and drinking on a lawn and give a ticket when one steps off onto the sidewalk," Church said. "Here's the drill. If you have yourself and a few other people visiting you on your property and you keep it under control, you are not going to come to any attention from the police."
Church also offered a warning that police can enforce the Student Code of Conduct on off-campus residencies. Police can also focus on individuals and houses that are repetitive offenders in terms of encouraging individuals to come into the neighborhood and create an unsafe environment.
Police will be especially cautious around bar closing time when masses of people are cleared out of the downtown area and move into neighborhoods and house parties. Church and others agreed those are situations that promote negative behavior leading to injuries and fatalities.
"What starts off as just a house party becomes mob and riotous behavior," Church said. "The most fortunate thing about Mankato is that nobody was killed. This is something we want the students to understand."
But getting the students of SCSU to understand where he is coming from has not been easy.
Despite talking to students and trying to educate them on blood alcohol levels and knowing when to stop drinking, NUCC members reported there have already been eight emergency trips to the hospital, six of which were life threatening situations, and four suicide attempts, all of which occurred within September. As a result, university officials find it necessary to have extra law enforcement on hand for events such as move-in day or homecoming that are notorious for causing problems.
"How do we educate students not to kill themselves?" Church said. "We can either work with the police department, neighbors and city council or we can just sit back and wait until someone is killed or somebody kills themselves."
Though they may be preparing for the worst-case scenario, the SCPD, city council and university do not expect an encore of the Mankato or 1988 riots. Long pointed out that it is a small group of students who cause the disruptive behavior that give universities, including SCSU, a bad reputation and make extra enforcement necessary.
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