WESTFIELD – If anybody has not noticed that college students have returned to the city after their summer vacation, a glance at the weekend’s police log will show evidence that they’re back.
City police report that, over the weekend, officers responded to at least seven college related disturbances and had at least six encounters with college aged pedestrians in possession of alcohol.
These incidents resulted in at least 13 city ordinance violation citations for offenses including being a minor in possession of liquor, possession of an open container of alcohol in public, keeping a nuisance house and creating excessive noise as well as three arrests on charges including disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and liquor charges.
Several of the infractions encountered were minor incidents involving only a single or a few youths but two included a hundred or more college aged youths and required several officers to contain.
Early Saturday morning, Officer Matthew Schultze reported at 12:40 a.m. that he observed that about 40 vehicles had been parked on the sides of Russell Road, apparently by party guests at a Russell Road apartment. When he got closer, Schultze reports, he saw 40-50 college aged youths in the roadway and observed an altercation in the street between a male and a female.
When he approached and attempted to detain the male participant, Schultze reports, the young man resisted him, resulting in a brief scuffle in the roadway before Trevor Robert Kemp, 20, of 10 Duxbury Lane, Amherst, was detained. He was subsequently arrested for disorderly conduct and resting arrest.
Schultze, supported by four additional officers, found three of the tenants and advised them of the disturbance created by their guests. The tenants told Schultze that they were unaware of the disturbance but were cooperative and asked their guests to leave.
Schultze reports that about 50 persons left the residence.
In an incident Saturday evening, five officers responded to a disturbance reported at 11:48 p.m. on Dubois Street.
Lt. Kevin Bard reports that when police responded to reports of the disturbance they found “over 100 people congregating throughout the streets and in the yards of the other residences nearby thus creating an unsafe environment.” Bard also reports that the area was littered with empty alcoholic beverage cans and cups and that there were “several pockets of college age kids loitering and yelling while on the treebelts all along the street on both sides.”
Two tenants were issued city ordinance violation citations for keeping a nuisance residence and Bard reports an incident which occurred when he attempted to issue a citation to a third tenant.
Bard wrote that he had placed the tenant’s license on his cruiser as he started to issue a citation when he was distracted by a skirmish which erupted nearby. He reports that, while his attention was diverted, the youth grabbed his license and fled. Bard chased him down and, after a brief scuffle, detained him.
Luke Owen Rooney, 19, of 1120 Main St., Hingham, was issued a citation but was also arrested. He was charged with being person younger than the legal drinking age in possession of liquor, possession of an open container of alcohol in public, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
A second person, Matthew Swenor, 19, of 56 Haviland St., Ludlow, found in possession of alcohol, was arrested being a person younger than the legal drinking age in possession of liquor.
Bard reports that the disturbance required “5 Westfield police officers to disperse in a somewhat orderly fashion.”
