One reveler grateful for police presence, lack of harassment

Fires, overturned cars, collapsed partitions and broken parking meters. The Steelers won the… Fires, overturned cars, collapsed partitions and broken parking meters. The Steelers won the Super Bowl! And after a phenomenal game, Oakland rioted! The excitement of the win as well as the overwhelming emotion was captured live by news choppers as well as on-site cameramen. It was this imagery that prompted me, along with my roommates and a few other guests that had came over to watch the game, to go out and join in on the festivities.

Last Sunday marked the first riot in which I had ever participated. It was a blast, I can’t lie. I watched as students ran wild in the streets of Oakland, some drunk, others just filled with the Super Bowl spirit. I hugged people I had never met in my life, high-fived complete strangers and screamed until I eventually lost my voice in the uproar. Never in my life would I have imagined such a scene in the midst of a college campus.

For those of you who weren’t in attendance, just imagine a Steelers fan sitting atop the cross walk, feet dangling above the crowd and city street. Imagine students walking up and down the street in plain view of the police with bottles of their favorite alcoholic beverages. Imagine cars being flipped and burned in front of the Cathedral, trash cans lit on fire in front of Towers, signs torn down on local businesses and parking meters broken in front of Eddie’s. All of these activities occurred with city, county, University and state police present.

Considering the amount of ruckus going on, I commend the police for keeping the injuries and arrests to a minimum. We need to understand that in the instance of a riot such as this one, the police have perhaps the most difficult job imaginable in attempting to contain a large population that’s already been incited to riot and is predominantly under the influence.

Now imagine all of these activities occurring on a predominantly black campus. A little difficult, isn’t it? Just try and picture the Washington Redskins winning the Super Bowl and the student body at Howard University marching through the streets of Washington, as was the case in Oakland. Or imagine – and this is my personal favorite fantasy – the Atlanta Falcons having won, and the Atlanta University Center – the campuses of Clark University, Morris Brown University, Spelman University and Morehouse University – acting as we did last weekend.

In 1996, following the Rodney King verdict, police surrounded the AUC in anticipation of a riot. While nothing serious happened, it is very obvious that the climate in Atlanta was very different than the climate here, as initially the police had minimal representation in Oakland after the game.

Had the demographic of our campus been different, would the conduct of the officers have been the same? Could we have expected the night to have ended as “uneventfully” as it did? I seriously doubt it.

As much as we would want to imagine that race would not have contributed to the issue, we have to take into account the history of our country in relating to the black community. And I am not referring to slavery or even the Civil Rights Movement era; in 1996, the AUC was encircled with officers before they were even given the opportunity to riot. With a population of about 11,000 – in all four schools combined – it garnered as much attention as the University of Pittsburgh, with its population of closer to 20,000, before any crimes were even committed.

This discrepancy just seems unjustified.

While I am aware that there are many white students who participated in the activities of last weekend that will attest to possible police harassment or try to remind me that, despite their skin color, the police still had the presence of mind to ask them to go home and not participate in the rioting, what I am asking them to acknowledge is the fact that relatively few arrests were made when a staggering number could have been. I am asking that students acknowledge the courtesy of the Pittsburgh police, not condemn them for their lack of harassment.

All in all, we should all be thankful for the men and women who were patrolling the streets last Sunday. Without their attentiveness to the nature of the situation, the night could have taken a very unfortunate turn very quickly. The police did an amazing job of coping with rowdy students and clearing the streets once it became overwhelmingly evident that they were no longer safe.

Brandon Edmunds blazes and amazes in opinions every Monday. E-mail him at ble3@pitt.edu.