By: T

T
Wed, 14 Jan 2015 18:29:47 +0000

Nothing that I've seen in photos or video indicate there was justification for the Columbus Police or OSU Police to respond as they did. Sofas on fire? Dumpsters? Think ahead, stage a fire department presence in the off campus housing neighborhoods and you take care of that. Don't claim you couldn't get to these places except via High Street and therefore needed to respond with such unwarranted force. That's an embarrassment. Secondly, block off High Street from Lane to 8th. When you have the single sanctioned, university sponsored viewing event being held in the Ohio Union as well as packed bars and restaurants along High Street, where did university and city authorities think those crowds were going to go when they left those locations. Ummmm....how about High Street? Third, The Lantern and other publications calling these "riots" is adding unneeded fuel to the fire. Pun intended. Stop it. You're smarter than that. Where is the video evidence of riots? There isn't any because this wasn't one. Finally, with regard to the stadium: Open the gates and let the students in! It's an artificial turf field and it wasn't going to be damaged. Light up the lights, turn on the video board, remove the goalposts ahead of time and let them all on the field...1000, 8000 or 40,000 of them! That's all they wanted. This was a cause for responsible celebration and that's what 99% of these students and fans were doing. Bottom line: This was a confrontation that was unnecessary, appears to have been carefully pre-planned and this situation was 100% caused by some combination of the CPD, OSUPD, CFD and the university. It's sad.