73 Arrested At UMass Amherst’s Blarney Blowout

Whiskey_Ginger11 years ago

I didn’t think awesome things happened in Massachusetts. It’s generally known as a liberal bastion of boring blue-bloods. My familiarity with the state pretty much ends at a few summers in Truro on Cape Cod and an ill-fated trip into Boston, which ended with a pretty weird night at the bar where “Cheers” took place. It’s a state that wasn’t even on my radar until Mitt Romney ran for president, but here it is again today, all because of UMass’s Blarney Blowout.

Day drinking is awesome, and UMass apparently agrees wholeheartedly. About 4,000 people were at one apartment complex, and there were many parties going on at the same time. That isn’t a crowd–that’s a fucking ocean made of people. Drunk people. Specifically, drunk people being antagonized by Amherst’s finest decked out in riot gear. Obviously, things were thrown, officers suffered minor injuries, and people went to jail. Seventy-three people to be exact. Presumably, the officers pelted with snowballs had to get their feelings checked, because I can’t imagine a snowball injury requiring medical attention.

Authorities spent most of Saturday trying to disperse several large gatherings around the UMass campus for the party traditionally held the Saturday before spring break, Amherst police said. The partying carried into early Sunday, and Amherst police Capt. Jennifer Gundersen said police were busy with numerous reports of fights, noise and highly intoxicated individuals and had made 73 arrests.

Gundersen called the daylong partying “extremely disturbing and unsafe.”

Sounds about right for a good daylong. I mean, it’s an undergrad St. Paddy’s Day celebration. It’s definitively disturbing and unsafe. At the last daylong I went to, a girl gave a guy a blowjob in a kiddie pool with a crowd of spectators in broad daylight. Captain Gundersen is probably just a little bit unhappy that she had to work instead of doing dirty girl scout shots and keg stands on Saturday.

The university doesn’t seem to be amused about the pre-St. Patrick’s Day mischief either, as administrators are threatening individual disciplinary sanctions and potential expulsion for students who were proven to be involved. God, you turn your huge campus daylong into one tiny little riot and people get all bent out of shape.

Amherst resident Raul Colon was collecting bottles and cans around the scene of the mayhem Saturday night and told the Gazette that the day’s events looked like “a revolution, like in the countries that have revolutions between the students and the government.”

Okay, so maybe things got a little out of control and everyone took a few liberties. Isn’t liberty what Massachusetts is all about, though? Pretty sure that was in one of my history textbooks somewhere. Revolutionary raging: it’s a TFM, and it’s damn fitting for the state that sparked the American Revolution. Don’t let the police get you down, UMass students. Soon it will be time to host a Cinco De Mayo daylong to make up for this one getting shut down early.

[via MSN News]

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