Proud to be a "Harvard of the North" Alum

Ahhh, Homecoming. Nothing like celebrating your alma mater by participating in a "drunken street brawl", including hurling racial slurs and bottles at police officers, fire fighters, and ambulance attendants. As in the past (but only the past 4 years, apparently), this year's saturday night Homecoming Celebrations included a two-block street party on Aberdeen St. This time, however, things degenerated into mayhem. Let's take a quick look at some numbers:

*Number of people attending the Aberdeen Street Party: 5000-7000
*Number of Police on hand: 100
*Cost of policing this event: $60,000 (not including police time that will be taken to prosecute all those charged)
*Liquor act violations: 200
*Criminal charges: 19
*Number of people who spent the night in jail: 35
*Age range of those jailed: 17 to 30
*Approximate number of non-Queen's Students present: about 1/3
*Depth of broken glass on the street: 2cm
*Number of cars flipped and set on fire: 1

According to some students interviewed on the night by the media, they blame the police presence for the increase in mayhem, that the students/partygoers were reacting to the police. I think this is a rather bull-shit filled argument. Due to the nature of the location, they did not break out the riot gear and fire hose as there is a very real risk of trampling as there is no where for the crowd to disperse to. As much as a few heads deserved to be busted (not all by any means, but surely a few) it would have caused wide-scale panic so the cops seemed to have kept their cool and should be congratulated for their restraint. The K-town police have a bad reputation (somewhat deserved, from all accounts) but on this occasion they did well. When they are getting physically and verbally abused - particularly when they were attempting to bring in paramedics to save passed-out drunks and bring in the fire department to put out the car on fire - and not pull out the billyclubs, they are doing alright. Imagine what could have happened if the police weren't there? Ugh. I don't want to sound like an old fogey but this is insane. Friday's issue of The Journal was filled with quote's about the the Man keeping students down and the unreasonable police presence last year and fears that they will be more unreasonable this year. One choice quote was "Police presence is bullshit..." and that the police don't have the student's interest at heart. Fucking right they don't - they have public safety at heart. I am very curious to see what tommorow's Journal has to say about all this. I would love to have the same people interviewed talked to again to see if they are singing the same tune.

It is very sad to see this occurring. One student quoted in the Journal said "Aberdeen is a tradition with a capital T," and continued "Homecoming is about school spirit and the University is trying to take away from that..." Does four years count as a tradition? If so, is this a tradition we want to continue? Really I don't see it as the University, the Police, or whomever else trying to take away from Homecoming spirit. They are trying to ensure that things go smoothly. The Aberdeen St. party has, really, nothing to do with homecoming or Queen's and really everything to do with idiocy.

Sure, many of the people were not Queen's students, yes. Many were underage, it seems, yes. But as the Queen's VP has been repeating it did occur one student's property around a student event and therefore it is upon the student's feet that blame should rest. And I agree. Criminal charges should be laid and academic sanctions for those who broke the law and the Queen's Code of Conduct. For the last few years the non-Queen's Kingston community have been extremely angry with the School for the actions of a minority of pissed-up students. This is only going to make things much, much worse.

I don't think homecoming should be cancelled because of this but I am very curious to see what other options there are. The University put on a free concert featuring some big-name bands. It was considered an utter failure as while it was sold out, only about 2000 of the 4000 ticket holders attended and it didn't prevent people from going to Aberdeen afterwards. What else can be done?

The CBC had picked up the story and is running it nationally. It also appears in the Star, on Yahoo News and who knows where else. This is really a disgusting and shameful moment. I am all for parties, drinking and other forms of self-destruction but there is absolutely no call for what went on at Aberdeen.

A proud, proud moment to be a Queen's grad.

Numbers and photographs taken from The Whig here, and see here for a chronology.
rgsc.