News

Quiet Riot

1998's version of the Halloween Riots(tm) prove to be more manufacturedthan instigated. Risking life and limb, the Commentator reports from thefront lines. Survey says: lame.

The Jackson Five's "Victory," NewCoke, Bud Bowl 4: sequels, as a rule, usually prove to be tiny witheredballs of feces in comparison to their predecessors. Of course, there are afew notable exceptions including Emmanuelle in Space (which, if I rememberright, included a ten minute orgy sequence involving Emmanuelle and threeET-like aliens) and, of course, the Robert Kennedy assassination (which,despite its sick glory, didn't quite capture the nation's attention likehis older brother's exploding head and Jackie's horrified expression hadfive years earlier). This little theory of mine rang true on Alder St. onHalloween night as 100 rioters, 50 cops and dozens of street signsconverged on last year's battlefield and, try as they might, utterly failedto live up to the hype.

Even as I write this on November 5th, Halloween Riot Pt.2 has alreadybecome dilapidated news, as old, brittled and yellowed as the festeringcataracts in John Glenn's eyes. Repeating, let alone reading, the storythat everyone has already heard fifteen billion times or was a part ofthemselves, is pretty much a pointl...oh well, here it is again for allthree of you just back from midterm sabbaticals in the windswept mountainsof southeastern Nepal.

Almost a full two hours before the riot began on that Halloween night,random acts of low-key violence and malignancy were already filling thestreets around the west campus area. Prepubescent vandals left a trail ofsmashed pumpkins behind them as they made their way home at that earlyhour. Roving bands of older costumed freaks had slowly begun replacingtheir younger counterparts around this time, adding the shattered glass oftheir empty 22s to the piles of pumpkin intestines that covered thestreets. Many of them were on their way to a debaucherous gathering at thenearby Campbell Club, where several flat chested young women had removedtheir tops to reveal their, well, as Vince Mederos might eloquently put it,"oh Jesus!"

Anyway, dozens of squad cars roamed the streets, eager to catch sight ofthe first stirrings of dreaded "riot," but finding only the occasionaluplifted middle finger. A swelling fog of eager tension filled the heartsand livers of both sides of the law as the clock struck 10 PM. Afterseveral days and weeks of steady promotion through word of mouth andgalvanizing press coverage, there was no longer a question of whetheranother riot would happen this year, but rather when, where and, "theywon't sic those goddamn rabid K-9s on us, will they? 'Cause I hear that'swhat they did to those kids up in Washington. Tore one guy's balls off.Goddamn fascists!" (real quote overheard earlier that night, honest!)Between 10 and 10:30 PM, according to police spokesperson Jane Power,several parties in the area began closing their doors in an attempt to keepcrowds small and to avoid unwanted police attention. It was at around thistime that police stormed into the Pi Kappa Alpha house and began passingout MIPs and citations, prompting the fraternity to kick out its 300partiers. Meanwhile, firefighters were rushing to the scene of a one alarmfire around the corner at the Campus Quads.

Around 11:15, partyless partygoers from the fraternity gathered along withothers at the corner of 16th Ave. to watch the smoky spectacle. Policearrived at the corner moments later, to keep the growing crowd in order andto hopefully disperse it. As the bored crowd lingered at the scene, acluster of party hoppers recently ejected from the Campbell Club, which hadjust closed its doors, added to the confusion as they entered the crowd. Itwas around this time that a group of police in full riot gear arrived.The first alleged act of violence that night, the initial spark whichstarted the riot, has been widely disputed. A random officer claimed hourslater that, "While we were trying to disperse the gathering crowd, a coupleof schlubs decided to be assholes and got everyone going by throwing acouple of bottles at us."

One random student attempted to clear things up the next day, recalling,"Everything was fine until the cops arrived with their riot gear, ready fora fight that wouldn't have happened if they'd stayed at home with theirhairy, fat-assed wives. Everyone started getting angry and began shoutingthe usual stuff like 'fuck off pigs.' Then a couple of guys started pullingup a stop sign. Yeah, I guess that was how it started."

Erupting at the corner of 16th, the newborn riot made its way past theCampbell Club and quickly moved down to the street to the intersection of17th and Alder. While a group of about twenty "real" rioters stomped signsin the middle of traffic and scoured nearby side streets in search of more,an estimated crowd of eighty onlookers cheered them on from the sidewalks.A few minutes later, twenty officers in riot gear advanced on the crowd,forcing it to move down Alder and pour into the next intersection. Somemembers of the crowd hurled bottles and rocks along the way, and one man,with the foresight to bring along fireworks that evening, paused to lightthe occasional bottle rocket.

Once relocated to the intersection of 18th and Alder, the rioters continuedstomping street signs, beating on passing cars and blocking traffic. Therest of the crowd remained on the sidelines, occasionally yelling out wordsof encouragement such as "fuck the fucking pigs and then fucking killthem!" Cars full of irritated motorists struggled to avoid the signs andrioters while other vehicles intentionally drove over the signs, earningthemselves shouts of approval from the rioters. Many members of the crowdcame and went during the course of the almost hour long riot, treating theentire thing like a dull street party.

Many Alder St. residents watched the rampage from the vantage points ofdriveways and the balconies of nearby apartments. "I don't mind all thisreally," one man said to a neighbor as the riot raged on a few feet fromhis porch. "Just as long as they don't trample my lawn and get any of thattear gas shit in my house like last year."

As a SWAT team and a paddy wagon slowly approached the intersection,several of the rioters decided to take turns staring down the advancingbrigade. With fists in the air, each would walk down the middle of Alderand stand defiantly for a moment in the wagon's spotlight before retreatingback into the crowd. Finding himself dressed up like Chris Tucker in "DeadPresidents," and under the same circumstances, it may be assumed that thiswhat Muhammed Ali might have done. Ignoring the team's occasional warningthat, "if necessary, we will use gas to disperse the crowd," the riotersfought on against dumpsters, street signs, bottles, small trees, garbagecans and any other inanimate object that happened to be caught out on thestreets unattended that night.

Finally, when it reached what Lt. Tom Turner would later describe as thepoint in a riot where "the safety of the police officers, the rioters andnearby residents are placed in danger," police units fired severalcannisters of tear gas into the intersection.

"That was pretty much the whistle that ended the whole thing," one rioterlater explained. "Everybody left after that." Undaunted by such things asirritated skin and burning lungs, a handful of rioters actually entered thecloud and began waving toy guns at approaching officers. But despite theplastic firearms and irrepressible spirit of these few, the crowd broke andspilled out into the surrounding streets and alley ways as the EPD swarmedin.

"It is obvious to anyone with half a pickled brain that this is a blatantconspiracy to draw the innocent partiers of Eugene into a riot," claimed auniversity junior who requested to be quoted in this article as a "randomdrunken paranoid fuck." "This was done in order to further the cause ofZero Tolerance and to make the citizens of Eugene receptive to even morepolice stations, more dogs, more nightsticks, and possibly a tank or two.""I think that the police's tactics tonight were downright scary; reallyNazi-esque," another UO student critiqued. "They were overprepared for thiswhole thing and actually seemed eager for this riot to happen. Some of themseemed to be enjoying themselves as they ran after the rioters when it wasall over." This writer himself was threatened with arrest by one officerafter attempting to approach a handcuffed rioter for a quote.

"No, not really," responded Lt. Turner after being asked if this year'sriot came as a surprise. "I think most of us expected this to happen sinceit's become a sort of tradition now, three years in a row. But I think wewere prepared for it, and I think we dealt with it accordingly andproperly."

But like most sequels, this year's riot proved to be a let-down for manyinvolved. "It just wasn't as epic," one sophomore would later complain. Tryas they collectively did to recreate the past, a two-page "clip & save"layout in the Emerald, three camera-wielding reporters from local newsaffiliates, four men dressed up in "Dead Presidents" duds and all the restbotched their attempts at emulating the past.

According to initial estimates, this year's riot did result in greaterproperty damage ($8000 worth) than last year's, and equaled last year'stotal arrests. Nonetheless, the crowd that gathered this Halloweenattracted only a mere 1/3 the size of 1997's skirmish. There were nosignificant injuries, other than a few bumps and bruises, a poor showing incomparison to last year's riot, when several people, including officers,were admitted into nearby hospitals for head wounds. Last Halloween's riotresulted in a destroyed van and several toppled utility poles, and evenincluded gunfire. The highlight of this year's riot was when a rollingdumpster collided with a passing car.

"These riots are nothing more than mindless orgies of senseless destructionthat reflect poorly on the school and the city," a university sophomoreasserted a few days later. "To make matters worse, these rioters have nocause. They've torn apart an entire street for no reason. How noble. Whatdisgusts me further is that the media has gone around comparing thestatistics of both, as if they were Super Bowls or something. Humansuffering and property damage! People are really sick."

"But it's fun," another student would later respond.

Besides the obligatory moral and social concerns that come with theseyearly rampages, there are a few others that must be considered.Repercussions of this year's riot may include even stricter enforcement oflast year's "Zero Tolerance." Party organizers may face tougherrestrictions on keggers which would force them to hire professionalsecurity. A recent bond from the Department of Education guarantees that wewill definitely be seeing more anti-alcohol propaganda around campus, aswell as an increased outpouring of florescent advertisements for universityorganized activities like "Swing Dance/Sock Hop Night at the CarsonCafeteria!" and "The Annual Adam Sandler Film Fest."

But to paraphrase what one student pointed out during the riot as three mennearby destroyed a stop sign for no other reason than the sheer hell of it:"These riots are beneficial, goddamit. They bring everyone together: thesteakheads, the uptight artists, the dweebs and even a hippie or two. Evenif we don't really have a cause, these things unite us, in our hatred forall oppression, even justified oppression. This country was founded on themotto 'Don't Tread on Me.' Man, for all we care, those cops over there areMussolini, Hitler, 'n' Napoleon all rolled into one. Our grandparents hadthe fascists in WWII, our parents had the anti-war movement, and [we justhave] these pathetic cops because we live in such a boring era. It's ourheritage to stand up against something, anything. We have to; it's ourheritage. Even if these poor fools are just trying to stop us from hurtingourselves and others. Even if we're out of our minds and all this really isjust a bunch of senseless violence. To hell with these pigs. Fuck em'. Fuckem' straight on down into hell!"

Brandon Hartley, an undeclared sophmore, is a staff writer for the OregonCommentator.