Another Spartan loss and another Spartan riot has been in the news. I have to say, I'm not surprised there was police presence and actions, but I am suprised that there was so much action, and so much tear gas. After reading many of the articles, I even went so far as to write a letter for the opinion section, although I doubt they will publish it, since they have to call and confirm the identity of letter writers and I am betting good money that they won't be authorized to call Brasil... In any case, since I thought it was a particularly good letter, I'm posting it here.



After having read several stories about the actions taken by the East Lansing Police, not all of which came from The State News, I have to make comment.

Having attended MSU for the duration of two degrees which included all of the “riot years,” I have experienced my share of gatherings in Cedar Village, most of which were very rowdy, but no more riotous than Carnival in Brazil (and no one here pelts us with tear gas). It is a gathering place for inebriated students to feel that Spartan Spirit, even in the face of defeat. It has been that way for much longer than our university has been known for riots. When there are sporting events, you know what happens in Cedar Village.

This us why I find comments like that of City Manager Ted Staton so ridiculous – “There was a significant amount of money spent to send a message to the crowd. They had unlawfully assembled - that is what happens when people are in places they shouldn't be.” (State News article “Top City Officials Absent for Melee" 4/6/05 at http://www.statenews.com/article.phtml?pk=29507). Everyone, including I hope, the City Manager, knows that students go to Cedar Village. It seems apparent that somewhere between the Final Four entrance celebration there and the Final Four defeat gathering, that someone other than those who gather there (an apparently who wasn’t even in the city at the time) decided it wasn’t a place students were supposed to be. Well, golly gee sir, where should they go then? To the bars that closed at 12:30? On to campus to study like good little scholars? Home to their dorms to be calm and collected? One must realize how ridiculous that assumtion is. Many had to vacate their apartments in Cedar Village due to the tear gas. Where should they have gone? Maybe if someone had informed the students that Cedar Village was no longer a place they could be before hand, the city could have saved a little money, eh?

What I really suspect happened here is the assumption that a Final Four loss would result in a similar outcome to that which occurred back in 1999. This was not a "just cause" reaction. This was a “pre-emptive” strike. And like some others so famously discussed before, an unnecessary one.