Dudes. My respect for the “get down” capabilities of Wisconsonians increases tenfold. Never thought y’all had it in you, truth to tell. I thought y’all were pretty much limited to wearing funny hats at Packers games and eating too many brats at Oktoberfest. Just goes to show… 
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/Midwest/11/03/halloween.riot.ap/index.html
I mean, like, whoa.
What started it was some girls on a second floor apartment flashing the crowd (incidentally, I saw crew members from “Girls Gone Wild”–think that had anything to do with it?). When they stopped and closed the blinds, some of the crowd got angry and threw bottles at their window. Then the people in the apartment started throwing stuff at the crowd. Then rioters started grabbing loose masonry and using to break the windows of businesses and bus shelters. And looting the stores. Especially the liquor store.
The police started using pepper spray to break up the crowd, but that wasn’t working, so they switched to tear gas. It was the first time tear gas had been used in Madison since the Vietnam war protests in the 60’s.
I’m so proud of my school right now :rolleyes: Although according to most reports, most of the rioters were from out of town.
Some other info–earlier this summer, there was a HUGE police presence at the Mayor’s Conference, which was held in Madison this year. Many people think that too much money was wasted on that. Since Halloween was in the middle of the week (okay Thursday isn’t exactly in the middle of the week) there was also some controversy about when the unofficial party was. Usually it’s the Saturday before, but because the Saturday after is closer, I was expecting it to be the 2nd. The police evidently thought the majority of partiers would go out on Thursday, but I knew that was ridiculous–it’s always on Saturday, so people can have their friends from out of town visit. Granted, about 20,000 went out on Thursday, but there were more police officers out on Thursday than on Saturday. One of the student papers had a countdown through pretty much the entire month of October, and they proclaimed Halloween to be on the 2nd.
What is somewhat coincidental, is that right before all this went down, I was in a little dive bar with my boyfriend, and one of the TV’s had a Discovery Channel program on non-lethal police weapons. I didn’t witness any rioting, but now I know why the “bunk drus” we were waiting for to get to my place never came.
Same here. :mad: Even if most people were out-of-towners, it doesn’t reflect well. I can’t believe I live a couple of blocks away from where that happened.
I was gone most of Saturday night, got back around midnight and was completely exhausted. I heard a lot of noise, but chalked it up to normal party sounds.
I was there from 10:20-11, it was pretty normal, but crowded. Only 3 of the arrested were from madison.
See the pics of the looters, none are wearing costumes(except the guy dressed like GWashington kicking in Badger Liquor). They probably just came for the party, to get trashed. I can’t believe they had that many people there at 2-ish AM, especially as cold as it was.
The police had too small a prescence, acted too slowly and to many inexperienced people working. How they didn’t figure it out that saturday was going to be big is a real good question, and they won’t have a good answer.
It sucks actually. Neanderthals.
Whoa! Cool!!
Hell, and to think I got two summonses for our “Pressed Hams '01” party!
Yeah? Really? Those hooligans.
Tripler
I’d have been there. . . Maybe. . .
Whoa! Cool!!
Hell, and to think I got two summonses for our “Pressed Hams '01” party!
Yeah? Really? Those hooligans.
Tripler
I’d have been there. . . Maybe. . .