As residents of 25 Fountain, we would like to relay our experiences with Public Safety last night and the conflicting messages we felt we were getting as to what we should have done to help the situation in front of our house. We were having a small birthday celebration for one of our housemates when the crowd that was displaced from the backyard between Fountain Avenue and Pine Street began to congregate in the middle of Fountain, directly in front of our house. After about 30 minutes, a Public Safety officer informed us that as long as we closed our door and there were less than 50 people inside our house, we could continue to have our party. At that point, we began to monitor entrance to our house, only permitting residents and close friends to enter. After about 20 minutes, the crowd in the street did not disperse and Public Safety returned to our house, where there were about 30 people gathered inside. They told us that our party was “not helping the situation” and that we had to turn off the music and not allow anyone to enter. With hindsight, we regret following his instructions, since the congregation of so many people outside our house, instead of inside, led to the escalation of the situation.

Complying with Public Safety, we closed our door and watched the actions of night unroll from the safety of our home. After the Middletown Police disseminated pepper spray into the crowd, we then opened our doors again to provide safety for students who had been in close proximity to the spray. We didn’t have enough sinks to accommodate all the students who needed to flush pepper spray out of their eyes.

We know with certainty that those were the instructions given to us about our party, and can only assume that other houses on the street hosting parties were told the same. We know of at least four parties on the street last night, and if the residents of those houses were permitted to allow people into their homes and continue their parties, there would have been less people out in the street.

Public Safety officers were trying to clear people out of the street last night, but their actions breaking up the numerous parties on the street only resulted in the opposite. There are many different factors that contributed to what happened last night, but from our perspective as residents of Fountain Avenue who would have been more than happy to get people out of the street, we think that Public Safety needs to address the ramifications that come from breaking up parties and the reality that students are not just going to go home, especially on the last night of school.