On The Campus: Frat Boys at Bay
Rethinking Colgate University’s Residential Vision
Another brawl at the Colgate-owned Palace Theatre
September 21, 2006
VIOLENCE, BOOZE, COPS AND HYPOCRITES:
One Colgate Alum’s Review of Homecoming
By Greg Narag ‘89
Director, Students & Alumni For Colgate, Inc.
I recently paid a visit to Colgate for Homecoming Weekend 2006. During this trip I personally witnessed an event that shocked and disgusted me. It happened in the very early morning hours of Sunday, October 1st.
While driving back from a late night snack at the Pizza Pub, I had the rare and odd experience of getting caught in traffic – on southbound 12B, just outside downtown, and at one o’clock in the morning. Ahead of the line of cars flashed the red and blue lights of several police cruisers, blocking the road in the vicinity of The Old Stone Jug.
As I drew closer, the reason for the police presence quickly became clear: a brawl outside the Colgate-owned and operated Palace Theatre. A large crowd spilled into the street (I conservatively estimate eighty to one-hundred) and gathered around to watch and/or participate in the fracas, as several men dove on each other, throwing punches. From my initial vantage point, I could not see if police were inside the mass of humanity, attempting to break it up or make arrests.
A few from the fight suddenly jumped into a waiting car, which raced recklessly from the scene up 12B at a high rate of speed. No police gave chase.
I parked my car and walked over to The Palace to get a closer look. By the time I got there, the fistfight was over, but the horde remained, swarming the streets. As some of the participants in the fight made their way past The Jug and into a nearby parking lot, so did the entire crowd follow, like a giant wave. As others came back toward the Palace, that wave flowed back to the street. It migrated back and forth, as people sensed a new skirmish might break out here or there.
I learned that not one Colgate student was in this crowd. This was a visiting group from SUNY Morrisville, apparently at an event inside the theatre.
I spotted two Hamilton Police officers, one New York State Trooper, an officer from Sherburne, and one in a car marked “SUNY Morrisville Police”. Those officers merely milled through the crowd but kept their distance, apparently deciding not to engage anyone, issue any warnings or attempt any arrests. Unusual, I thought, since I witnessed many who were belligerent, unruly and clearly drunk or high. Some were falling down in the street. Others were on rubber legs, being held up and dragged by friends. One woman grabbed another by her collar, shaking her and screaming in her face as the other’s eyes rolled up in her head.
For a full twenty minutes I stood in the crowd and observed, as police did next to nothing. Finally, around 1:20, the Morrisville group was virtually gone, having slowly dispersed and headed home.
It was then that I saw something I wouldn’t believe, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes: only then – after the SUNY crowd had left – did the cops spring into action. One young officer went to his vehicle to bring out the K-9 unit. That’s right: a large German Shepherd, on his leash, in the middle of the street. The only problem was the police dog was growling and snarling at a smattering of Colgate students, standing across the street outside The Jug. It was truly absurd.
The officer told the students it was time to clear the area. When one asked why they had to leave, the officer made a rather snide remark along the lines of “…because you just don’t f***ing listen, that’s why.” The officer failed to notice that I was standing right next to him, stone cold sober, carefully observing.
Behind me the lights inside The Jug came up. The bartender got on the speaker system to announce the bar was being asked to close down for the night, and everyone had to leave immediately. Officers then took their positions, walking into the departing throng of confused students and ordering them to go home.
This event raises several questions and comments.
First, to local law enforcement: you looked like fools. You failed to contain a drunk, violent, out-of-control mob, yet you boldly secure the perimeter twenty minutes later by neutralizing…the kids inside the Jug. Your actions were comical, at best. Out here in the real world, police enforce the law. You might check into it.
For the Colgate-owned Palace Theatre: if memory serves, wasn’t there a violent incident about a year ago, also involving visitors from SUNY Morrisville? Isn’t it true that several people were hospitalized for stab wounds? Who allowed this crowd back, knowing of this recent history?
And finally, for Colgate University’s administration: where were you? Do you not own and operate this venue? Where is your oversight?
Colgate of course has made much noise about purchasing the private property of the fraternities, ostensibly to help clamp down on their alleged patterns of bad behavior. Yet during my visit the fraternity houses were dead quiet, while the boozing, brawling, and bawdiness was happening everywhere else except the fraternities! I walked across the quad, seeing and hearing the partying at Andrews and Stillman. I observed as Colgate Safety officers kept far away from the dorms, merely circling campus in their cute little patrol cars.
This becomes even more troubling when one considers reports from the opening weeks of the semester, where several students were found unconscious on Whitnall Field and in the dorms, hospitalized for alcohol poisoning.
It’s not exactly a news flash that there’s binge-drinking going on in Hamilton, New York. But again, we must ask: where is Colgate on this? How can this be happening in the much-heralded era of the “New Vision for Residential Education?” In Colgate’s own dorms? Why is Colgate preoccupied trying to manage its newly acquired fraternity houses if it can’t even control the free-flowing liquor on campus?
More troubling still is that some undergraduate fraternity members tell me they’re fearful of what’s about to happen next. They say that with the exception of one house, fraternity membership is down from last year, and they’re afraid Colgate is going to nail them on so-called “occupancy requirements.” That means if they can’t keep their houses filled, Colgate may step in and fill those beds with non-fraternity people. Or worse, they speculate, Colgate may exercise its right to make the fraternity forfeit the house altogether. And it’s not hard to imagine what happens to the popularity of a fraternity that finds itself without a place to call home.
All of this becomes even more curious in light of a rumor circulating around Hamilton: I spoke to one local merchant who says Colgate wants to expand the student population by at least four hundred. And where, I wonder, will another four hundred students be housed? In one or more of the recently purchased fraternity houses, perhaps?
I sincerely hope the scenario I just laid out is dead wrong. In fact, I’d be glad to hear a Colgate official tell me I’m wrong. But why do I get the feeling we’re about to see the final stages of Colgate’s true plan play out?
We shall see. For the present moment, there’s a more critical issue at hand. Colgate University appears either unable or unwilling to exercise the proper oversight of its properties, both on campus and downtown, particularly with regard to alcohol and violent, unlawful behavior.
And this should tell you two things: (1) Colgate’s justification
for its purchase of the fraternity houses is laden with hypocrisy, and
(2) most importantly, never mind the fraternity debate: someone is likely
to be seriously injured or killed in this kind of environment.