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April 25
Around 9 a.m. Parties begin coinciding with annual Spring Jam celebration.
Early afternoon Parties begin moving outside.
5 p.m. Residents report that parties get more raucous.
Between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. Police first respond to Dinkytown neighborhoods and meet partygoers who throw rocks and bottles.
8 p.m. A street bonfire begins on the 1300 block of Seventh Street.
10:15 p.m. Fire trucks arrive to put out street fire. Many partygoers scatter.
10:40 p.m. People continue throwing garbage cans, wood and brush onto the street fire.
10:48 p.m. People begin throwing bottles with alcohol onto the fire.
10:56 p.m. More than a dozen police cars, with some riot police, and at least one police van arrive at the scene.
11:08 p.m. Officers spray pepper spray into crowd.
11:10 p.m. Police use concussion grenades.
11:30 p.m. Reports of arrests on the scene.
11:37 p.m. Police continue to fire projectiles and use concussion grenades and tear gas.
Discuss the issue further at Daily Forums: What should happen next year?
April 26
12 a.m. Activity seemingly quiets down. Many officers leave the scene, though police continue to patrol the area.
12:35 p.m. The fire appears to restart in the street. Police also make another push to clear the streets using strengthened force.
12:40 a.m. Police begin moving in on the fire, dispensing chemical irritants along the way.
12:44 p.m. Another fire truck is at the scene to put out the fire.
12:45 p.m. Police continue their use of concussion grenades.
12:50 a.m. Arrests made. A fire truck puts out the fire in the middle of Seventh Street.
1 a.m. Minneapolis police Sgt. Jesse Garcia holds a press conference. As of this time, four official arrests have been made. “This is a lot of drunk college students that are taking advantage of a good situation,” Garcia said about Spring Jam. “I think they might have gotten the message tonight.”
1:05 a.m. A police officer was seen smashing the hood of a car with a riot baton. Staff photographers said police were raiding a home near the intersection. Some houses had tear gas shot inside them.
Around 1:30 a.m. Police congregate in a nearby church parking lot and detain another person for taunting the officers. Shortly after, it starts raining and police begin leaving the scene.
—Daily Staff reports
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31 Comments
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well shit
I go to Iraq, where it is calm and DInkytown blows up....
-dugger
err Dinkytown sry, fat
err Dinkytown
sry, fat fingered it
Aw, this was a really quality
Aw, this was a really quality post. In theory I'd like to write like this too - taking time and real effort to make a good article... but what can I say... I procrastinate alot and never seem to get something done. GED test AND Adison High School
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Why so reactive and not proactive
As a landlord in the area doing regular maintenance during the day on Sat., I could have easily predicted a mess. I was in the area fro approx. 3 hrs., not once did I see a police officer. What I did see was many large gatherings of students in front lawns, students walking up and down streets with open alcohol containers. I do believe that students need to be held accountable for behavior, but what about a little guidance? How about a proactive approach (patrolling and breaking up gatherings during the day) rather than the reactive approach that took place. Not sure the legality of this, but what if at 9:00PM police removed six kegs of beer from a home. Do you think the group would disperse? Don't allow them to party, by enforcing the law. How about that?
Proactivity stifled due to budget cuts
There's usually a "party patrol" during events like Spring Jam, but apparently the police department didn't have the funds this year:
http://www.mndaily.com/2009/04/22/no-party-patrol-spring-jam
I can't believe that Spring
I can't believe that Spring Jam is a U-sanctioned event, in any way. It's frat row gone mad. And it is pathetic to see police have to drive up and down University, just to babysit the drunk teenagers.
Colleges and cities that condone and allow this behavior are lame. Tell the children to grow up, stop wasting money, and stop violating themselves.
Um.... I hate frat douchebags
Um.... I hate frat douchebags as much as the next guy but this particular incidence had nothing to do with the Frats or Frat row.
not frats
actually, from living with people that witnessing this first hand, they said the majority of the people that partook in the riot were not fraternity people. man of the people were not even students of the UofM, but rather people from UMD, Augsburg, or other neighboring schools that have heard about the parties that result from spring jam. there were even people that did not go to school whatsoever, along with gangmembers (who pulled a gun on one of my neighbors attempting to put out a fire with a extinguisher, another was threatened with a knife for trying to get people away from a car).
i do agree however, people do need to grow up. the occasional party is fine, alot of people do it for a celebration. every weekend for no reason other than it is the weekend... is absolutely ridiculous. school is for creating a future for yourself... thats what your paying for.
I'm just glad I was smart enough to leave.
Unfortunately enough, this incident was right outside my house that I rent for the school year. It was already unbearable by 2pm, so I left to go to St. Paul to get some of my work done for the upcoming week, and was smart enough to stay in my girlfriends dorm over night. I was very afraid to leave my car in the parking lot behind our house... and I must say I'm very glad I did not, as my neighbors car got trashed. It was even a chore to get my car out of the driveway without hitting anyone or being cussed at.
However from being here from 9am until 2pm, I would have never expected people to get this out of hand. It seemed the same as last year... people walking around with backpacks full of alcohol. Only this time there were way to many people in one place.I drove back to my house around 8 to pick up my computer, and the block was packed all the way to 7th street. I was afraid to even attempt to drive through.
I am very excited I already signed another lease and am moving away from the 1400 block next year. There is absolutely no way in hell I could deal with another year of this. The fact that the there was no party patrol is unbelievable, and even more so that this was publicly admitted by your newspaper. That only gives things like this more of an ability to happen. Although Dinkytown is not in the Universities jurisdiction, the local police should have definitely done more earlier on to stop this from happening. Calls were made, they drove by, and did nothing. It was loud enough at 12pm-2pm, I'm absolutely stunned it took them another 8 hours to fix this. I hope the University learned that if they are going to not do anything to prevent this from happening, there will be consequences. Just be glad no one died. I'm quite embarrassed to be a UofM student right now.
Bunch of morons. And I don't
Bunch of morons. And I don't feel bad for any of them who got hit with stuff or arrested. This is one of those times when I'm so glad that I don't live on or anywhere near campus.
From one parent to another, U of M next year, no Spring Jam!
I am a resident property owner in SE Como neighborhood. I have a infant son and a young family here in the neighborhood. I appreciate much about this neighborhood including the students and elder folks, families and the proximity to the U.
I am appalled that young adult's actions ended up in a riot so close to my home. I too was surprised and taken aback by the partying I saw on Saturday morning at nine am. I stopped off at two houses to remind the kids of curfew and appropriate neighborhood behavior. On Saturday evening around 11pm fireworks exploded in front of my house waking my wife and our infant and my elder next door neighbor. We were frightened. To hear that a riot of 500 drunk college students was walking distance from my house is even a greater concern.
I am 36 years old. I enjoy partying and I have been to my share of college and roudy parties. A 500 person riot is way more than a roudy party. I wonder what your parents would do if a riot erupted in their Minnetonka or Richfield neighborhood? Call the cops and demand political accountability.
That's what we will do here. I for one will add my voice and lean my shoulder to ask the U to cancel Spring Jam next year. If ya'll can't party responsibly than expect to not have a party next time. Please expect that if rioting happens it will promote honest and responsible persons like myself to hold your immature selves accountable like your parents should. Ya'll should be ashamed.
And to you who is reading this and going to call names. I am especailly ashamed. Please grow up.
Peter D
Not a Good Place For You
I'm just as mad as you are about the stuff that happened Saturday night, but this is a college neighborhood. No disrespect to you, but college kids drink and party all the time. It usually doesn't get this out of hand, but in the Como area that you live in, you have to expect that people are going to be partying past 11 PM on the weekends, whether it is Spring Jam or not. If you want peace and quiet at night, then don't live in a college neighborhood. If this is the only time that you have been awoken at 11 PM, then it was obviously way too out of control. But if this has been happening to you all year, maybe you should reevaluate your living situation.
The Problem With Your Reasoning
You have addressed a concerned neighbor, whose argument was valid, with a completely invalid argument which only shows your inflated sense of entitlement. A neighborhood is not a "college neighborhood." It may be populated by a large percentage of college students, but it does not belong to the college students exclusively. Using this as defense of the actions is a ridiculous argument. You are blaming the victim for being victimized.
If you didn't want me to steal you shouldn't have had your store here.
If you didn't want me to hit you with my car you should have moved out of the way.
See what I'm saying?
As a University student I hate seeing riots that stand for nothing. There is absolutely no reason for people to destroy someone's car or break a shop window just because it's Spring Jam. I could understand if maybe students were rioting for a cause. Maybe if an injustice had occurred... But no, we're just trained that the best thing a college student can be is drunk and unapologetic. I hope we can forever continue this trend of mediocrity at the University of Minnesota, so that, one day, our children will look back and smile when they see how we affected the world in such a positive way.
How is that argument invalid?
How is that argument invalid? If you don't want to get shot, you live somewhere other than the ghetto. If you don't want to listen to traffic, you live somewhere other than next to the freeway. If you don't want to deal with drunk college kids, you live further than a stone's throw from one of the biggest colleges on the continent. I'm not saying the college kids have a right to do anything - just that the home owners should have exercised more common sense when selecting a residence.
If I leave a nice car running, with the doors unlocked, in a bad neighborhood, nobody has the right to steal it. However, I would be stupid for putting myself in that situation.
in response...
Yes, you would be stupid for leaving your car running with the doors unlocked in a rough neighborhood...but FAR LESS AT FAULT then whoever would take it.
But that's not to mention that this is a poor analogy to begin with, because the victims of the dinkytown riot took no such "stupid" action prior to being victimized. Nobody left their car running. Nobody who's car was damaged did anything stupid to offer it up as a sacrifice to you hooligans. Are you saying that anybody who would choose a residence in dinkytown must also be stupid? That pretty much includes you. Some drunken college student crashed into my car in a hit-and-run last weekend. The car was legally parked in a seemingly safe place. Am I stupid for living in dinkytown? Is it my fault my car got destroyed?
Secondly, get off of your egotistical high horse. There is MUCH MORE that goes on in the University Community than your irresponsible, drunken, EASY, self-centered undergrad years. The college is not centered around you, nor are the surrounding neighborhoods. The purpose of attaining a college education is so that you may be a greater contributor to society. (The egotistical response that I will probably get from you here is "No, its so that I can make more money someday"...but you only get paid more money BECAUSE of your greater contributions to society). Here you have illustrated how you care NOTHING about society. To you, people are just an obstacle that need to move themselves out of your way so that you can be a belligerent destructive drunk and not be held accountable. Because of this, you are completely opposite of everything that academia stands for, and therefore are undeserving of the college education of which you so proudly boast to begin with.
"This is a poor analogy to
"This is a poor analogy to begin with, because the victims of the dinkytown riot took no such "stupid" action prior to being victimized."
Sure they did. They moved into a college neighborhood and expected it to be just like the suburbs. It should be no surprise that stuff gets damaged in an environment when a huge percentage of the residents abuse alcohol on a regular basis.
"The purpose of attaining a college education is so that you may be a greater contributor to society"
False. If this were the case, half the majors in CLA wouldn't exist. Does society really benefit from graduates with underwater basket-weaving degrees? No.
Correction
You may drink and party all the time, but not all college students do. Most anyone who does "all the time" is likely to be a drop out as well. Winner? Just be cause you're in college does not mean you get to act without restraint and responsibility. You've seen too many movies if you think it's normal to drink and party all the time just because you're in college. You also do not get to call territorial rights over the neighborhood because it is close to campus. No matte where you live, that place is sacred to you and your family that dwell there - it is a place you've earned, work for and do all you can to make it a safe home for you and your family. Being near a college does not revolk one's right to property and safety. You can party after 11pm and not disturb your neighbors. We've done it many times before but NEVER disrespected our neighbors with noise violations or crazy drunk peoplr wondering around. Ever heard of a bar?
Seriously? Come on
Okay, there have been a lot of great points made on these articles about what happened last weekend, but there have also been some really stupid points made. Grouping the student body together as a whole for this, slamming democrats and bringing up political situations that have nothing to do with anything, and talking trash about fraternities and sororiities when they are not to blame is immature and ridiculous. A house party got out of control because of a very small party of the student body, a riot insued, and the cops didn't do enough to stop it early on in the evening. They did the best they could with what they had. Lack of funding=lack of police presence, and that is why there was no party partol. Posting that in bold print on the front page, Daily, was really stupid and probably to blame for the amount of people that were out there. Blaming this on the concert being cancelled is also ridiculous, things were getting crazy way before that was announced. Getting mad when the police tear gassed you after you threw bottles at them, come on! What did you think was going to happen? Getting pissed off because you were evicted after violating the terms of your lease. Again, did you think you were going to get away with it after what happened because of it? Tim Harmsen did the right thing in taking action against those students initially but he also did the right thing after looking into police information. He decided not to evict the students, but still hold them accountable with a hefty fine. I think that was the right thing to do. So people should stop trash talking him on here. And finally, if you are a parent or adult with children living at home who lives in the middle of Dinkytown or a student area on Como, stop whining about the noise and environment in which you live. The rioting was uncalled for, I'll give you that, but to me it sounds like you are complaining about the atmosphere of where you live in general. Guess what? You decided to move into a neighborhood where over 75% of the residents are students. If you wanted peace and quiet on the weekends, then you should have moved to a suburb or less populated area of the metro. Students party and there is no way of stopping that, get over it. Why you would want to live over here is beyond me. It's not like it's any cheaper than other places, some of us pay ridiculous rent for shitty housing, only because it's a good location for us students. This is a student run newspaper. If you want to complain about college kids, go comment on the Star Tribune website, not here. Some of us are good students who work hard to stay here, we don't deserve that.
Tim Harmsen did the right
Tim Harmsen did the right thing in taking action against those students initially but he also did the right thing after looking into police information. He decided not to evict the students, but still hold them accountable with a hefty fine. I think that was the right thing to do. So people should stop trash talking him on here. And finally, if you are a parent or adult with children living at home who lives in the middle of Dinkytown or a student area on Como, stop whining about the noise and environment in which you live wine clubs
JUST STOP IT ALREADY
If you have a family, don't live in a college housing area. If you don't like loud parties or U-sanctioned events that allow or promote drinking and partying, don't live in a college housing area. If you like to complain about college kids, don't live in a college housing area. Just stop, kids were having fun, it got out of hand, the police handled it the best they know how. This is the way it always been. After we had the riots a few years ago after the hockey championship we didn't stop having hockey, it was just taken care of differently in the future. Now law enforcement will be ready for it an adapt. Life is about adaptation. If you just like to bitch about drunk kids then move far far away from any college or big city and i promise your life will be a lot more manageable.
News flash...we can live
News flash...we can live where we want. And you still have to follow the law, even if the neighborhood is 90% college kids. Think about this: some of those college kids in your neighborhood don't party and don't want or need idiots in their neighborhood.
Sorry if that disappoints you. Time to grow up. Someday you might be just like the person you're complaining about.
Sure, you can live wherever
Sure, you can live wherever you want. I can live in Somalia if I want, but that doesn't make me smart. You knew that college kids drank underage and played loud music long before you ever moved into this decidedly collegiate neighborhood and now you're complaining about it. You should move to Seattle next and then complain about the rain.
Well Said
Exactly right. I would like one good explanation from you parents who are whining on here as to why you live where you live. It's one thing to live over on 10th near Marcy Park, across 35W, or towards St. Paul on Como for that matter, but it sounds like you people live right where the action was in the middle of Dinkytown and another college area on Como and 15th. 90% of the people that live there are students. So why in God's name, if you have young kids, are out of college and working, would you want to live there?
Comments
I'm in agreement with everyone that this behavior is totally outrageous and idiotic; however, what I find awesome is the University students who took the time to make very solid and articulate arguments on this message board. I completely expected the comments to be full of stupid lame remarks about drinking and partying with nothing but attitude to back it up. Thank you to those of you who are representing the University with your brain and sticking it to some of the yuppie's on this message board who probably didn't expect to have to defend those of us that do go to school at the U and do have a decent brain in our heads.
Comments
I'm in agreement with everyone that this behavior is totally outrageous and idiotic; however, what I find awesome is the University students who took the time to make very solid and articulate arguments on this message board. I completely expected the comments to be full of stupid lame remarks about drinking and partying with nothing but attitude to back it up. Thank you to those of you who are representing the University with your brain and sticking it to some of the yuppie's on this message board who probably didn't expect to have to defend themselves again those of us that do go to school at the U and do have a decent brain in our heads....which is where the focus should be instead of being overshadowed by the decisions of some morons.
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Why not patrol through the
Why not patrol through the party instead of shooting first and asking questions later? The staff reports that a police officer smashed a car's hood and police fired tear gas into homes, so like urban warfare. These 2 things seem totally ineffective, rather like lawless behavior in the heat of the moment, that unfortunately opens the festering wounds of RNC policing's long-term damage to the Twin Cities.
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This was so crazy to see.
This was so crazy to see. This riot was so out of control. I am glad they took care of it. People really need to take care of themselves.
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