Postgame riots grow on campus

By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff, 10/11/2003

AMHERST -- The itch to set fires, hurl bottles, and destroy property after every Red Sox victory is starting to appear contagious on several local college campuses.

Although nothing this week topped last Saturday's full-scale riot at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, students there have been chanting "Riot! Riot!" in an attempt to get things started on subsequent nights and snapping pictures chronicling every bit of mayhem, police and students say. Some are even competing to cause the most trouble.

One UMass-Dartmouth student used his website to display photos of what he proudly called the campus's "first real riot," last Monday night. "Take that UMass A," the student wrote. "You guys were `under control.' [Expletive.] Umass D representin'."

The University of Rhode Island had a similar disturbance Wednesday night that led to three injuries. But the problem is most acute at UMass-Amherst, where the police force will mobilize yet again after this afternoon's Sox-Yankees game.

"We don't have any indication that students are going to stop" wreaking havoc after every Sox win, in the words of Deputy Chief Patrick Archbald.

The campus's biggest reprieve so far came when the Red Sox lost Thursday night, and only a few hundred students gathered peacefully on the plaza where the unrest had occurred on earlier nights.

The sudden unrest is part of a growing national phenomenon of "celebratory riots." Across the nation, there were only a handful of these violent disturbances each year in the late 1980s. By 2001, there were nearly 30, according to a study cited by an Ohio State University task force on the problem.

Psychologists and school officials blame problem drinking, a mob mentality, even the stress of living in a nation at war. But no one has figured out why the age group that used to protest war and injustice now riots when the home team wins.

"It's stupid, but when you feel the rush, you gotta do what you gotta do," said a UMass-Amherst freshman who gave his name as Paul Pierceson, although that name does not appear in the campus directory. The freshman, who said he threw beer bottles at police Wednesday night, was interviewed early Friday as a drunken game of whiffle ball came to a close on the plaza in the Southwest section of campus.

"If you display your feelings by flipping cars, that's just the way it is," he said. "I'm not a bad kid, but, honestly, it's the adrenaline."

Last Saturday night, when the Sox hadn't even clinched the division series, a mob of 1,000 UMass-Amherst students turned over two cars, vandalized a third, and even attempted to roll over a car with the driver inside. They set large fires, broke into a dining hall, and threw bottles at the police, who eventually dispersed the crowd primarily through use of PepperBall, a form of pepper spray fired through paintball-like guns.

Monday night, after the Sox defeated the Oakland Athletics, as many as 2,000 students gathered on the same plaza, but Archbald said it was a "rowdy celebration," nothing worse.

Then after the Sox beat the Yankees Wednesday night, a crowd of 1,000 created a "disturbance," Archbald said, with students pulling fire alarms, setting a bonfire, and dropping bottles out of windows. There were several fights, and some women exposed their breasts as they were hoisted above the crowd on men's shoulders.

The worst injuries of the week at Amherst appear to be someone who lost teeth after being hit with a bottle and a young man who jumped off the dining hall and apparently broke limbs.

UMass-Amherst students have had other violent confrontations with police at off-campus parties this fall, and they rioted after the Patriot's Super Bowl win in 2002. But the disturbances aren't limited to Amherst: Last spring, 4,000 University of New Hampshire students and other fans tore through the streets of Durham after UNH lost the NCAA ice hockey championship.

At UMass-Dartmouth Monday night, there were numerous acts of vandalism, bonfires, and fire alarms set off. At URI on Wednesday, students overturned a car and threw bricks through windows.

"It's becoming an underground movement. People are starting to scheme and challenge each other to see who can do more damage," said Peter Roby, director of Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society. "The only thing that can stop it, besides zero tolerance, is someone getting killed."

UMass-Amherst administrators are indeed vowing zero tolerance, saying they will not only seek prosecution of those who break the law but also expel the worst offenders.

Police have also adjusted their tactics over the course of the week. Thursday night, they use fluorescent lights to prevent troublemakers from cloaking themselves in the darkness and guarded dormitories to prevent nonresidents from entering. It's not clear if it was such tactics or simply the fact that the Yankees won, that helped prevent trouble.

Roby insists that the melees have nothing to do with sports, that sporting events are just an excuse for people who want to do harm. But at UMass-Amherst, many students express intense feelings around their underdog team, decking themselves in Sox regalia and making a lot of passionate, mostly unprintable, comments about the Yankees.

"They are just so emotionally into it, it's primitive," said freshman Gary Rose, who had a bit of an objective take as a Mets fan. "People think: `We won. We're on top of the world. We can do whatever we want.' "

Officials stress that the vast majority of students disapprove of violence. Many Southwest residents have been complaining that they can't work or sleep in the midst of the chaos.

Marcella Bombardieri can be reached at bombardieri@globe.com.