East Carolina University - Buccaneer Tecoan Yearbook (Greenville, NC)

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October 31, 1975 Riot Erupts In Downtown Greenville On the night of October 31, released around 6 a.m. however 1975, eight students and two police- some persons were not released un- men received injuries and 57 per- til late Saturday afternoon. The per- sons, 30 of which were ECU stu- sons were kept on the bus for hours dents, were arrested on charges of while mace and tear gas was failure to disperse and inciting a sprayed in the windows according not. Damages totaling over $3,000 to some persons which were arrest- were done to downtown businesses ed. as a result of the disturbance. As a result of the riot and cir- What began as Halloween cele- cumstances surrounding It, the Stu- brations ended as a riot which made dent Government Association (SGA) headlines throughout N.C. and Vir- unanimously passed a resolution to 2 ' ' 3- investigate the facts of the riot Around 11:00 p.m. Friday the whereas the confrontation police attempted to disperse a showed a lack of good judgement crowd of approximately 400 per- and responsibility on the part of sons according to Greenville Police those Involved ... and a degree Chief Glenn Cannon. The crowd, of hostility does exist between the consisting of ECU students, local students and the civil authorities citizens and visitors from other of Greenville. A committee was cities, had congregated on Co- formed by the SGA to study the tanche Street between Fourth and riot and to make recommenda- Flfth streets, an area where seven tions to the legislature when the nightclubs were concentrated. study was completed. Cannon said an order to disperse After several weeks of interview- was given on the corner of Fourth jng persons involved in the riot and and Cotanch and the crowd was studying the evidence, the commit- given five m inutes to disperse. tee made recommendations to the Witnesses that were downtown in SGA legislature. The recommenda- the area said that the order could tions asked: (1) for the removal of not be heard by the crowd. Glenn Cannon from the office of The Greenville Police first used Greenville Police Chief, (2) for ac- pepper fog, then tear gas to break tivities to begin which would im- up the crowd which overflowed prove student-police relations, (3) from the nightclubs along Cotanche that all charges of failure to dis- St. Reports of some witnesses said perse and inciting a riot be dropped, that tear gas and fog were sprayed and (4) that an ECU student have inside the nightclubs, forcing the a non-voting membership in the occupants out into the streets. Greenville City Council. Cannon reported that 27 persons in response to the SGA investi- were arrested around midnight for gations of the Halloween incident failure to disperse. The persons the Greenville City Council met in arrested were on Fourth, Fifth, and an open hearing to discuss the Cotanche streets, and some were riot and the recommendations of even a block and a half away. Many the SGA. came out of the nightclubs to es- it was determined that on the cape the gas only to be arrested night of Oct. 31, 1975 a riot did by the police with no knowledge occur and damages were done to °f y- businesses only after the police had An hour after that first arrest arrested 27 persons for failure to made by the police, a second crowd disperse. Some of those arrested gathered. In protest of the arrests, testified at the special hearing that the crowd began throwing bricks a) it was almost impossible to hear and bottles through display win- the order to disperse over the noise dows of businesses along Fifth St. of the crowd and firecrakers, and Cannon said 29 persons were ar- b) persons were given no outlet by I rested and charged with inciting a which they may have left the area ' ' ' ' ° - as the police were everywhere and Everyone arrested was taken to no one gave any proper directions the county jail and charged with on vyhat to do or where to go. one of the two crimes. Most were ' Va,w .„ P ' ' '

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—. j . 1 ;-— ,- .- i ' t ' .a H T t Opposite Page: Above: Tyler, the newest dorm on campus iS also the largest and Is the only female dorm on College Hill Drive. Below: Mendenhall Student £enter began operat- ing in the fall of 1974. The three million dollar structure contains the Student Government and Student Union offices and is a complete enter- tainment center with a theater, and auditorium, game rooms and a crafts center. This Page: Above Left: The half of million dollar lights added to Ficl len Stadium in 1975 are seen in the early evening moonlight between Minges Coliseum and Ficklen. Above: Although the campus continues to grow there are still natural settings where an individual can find peace and solitude such as the small mall behind Rawl. Left: Snow is not often found in Greenville but when It falls as it did in January, students readily enjoy the beauty and fun it brings.

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. 3 y: Tpep JccksPaxkini; ' ■ ° . )op .n, Hrusr . LOT I I P HMNC ml FIFTK •cnnVC GATHERED ALPNG ORDER TP DISPERSE ST7 ET5,p,jj jpj f :vn■ n p.- given here N FllTTP STREE- MAP OF DOmTCW GREENVILLE WHERE RIOT rCCUREC CM HALLOtEEM NIGHT 1975. • INDICATES USE CF TEAR CAS BT POLICE X X SHOWS WHERE SOME PEOPLE WERE ARRESTE J fr City Council members agreed that there was much confusion between the police and the crowd and that in the future steps would by taken to prevent such incidents from occuring. A suggestion was made by Mayor Percy Cox that a town common should be organized for festivities so crowds would not block the streets. The council re- fused to accept the recommenda- tion regarding Police Chief Cannon and asked the SGA to withdraw it. The council also felt that an ECU student on the council as a non- voting member would increase communication from the campus and the city. The SGA called for a boycott of the downtown merchants to begin Dec. 9, 1975, however all charges against persons, both students and non-students were dropped and the boycott was not held. For weeks after the riot, letters poured into the Fountainhead com- menting about the riot. Merchants felt that the police overreacted. Some alumni commented on the incident and they too felt that the police overreacted. One student. Bob Tyndall, felt that the riot was a disgrace to ECU students. Tyn- dall ' s letter was met with much op- position, as was a letter printed in the University of North Carolina ' s Daily Tar Heel declaring that ECU has no class . There was also a letter from the policemen involved supporting the actions of Police Chief Cannon. Some letters criti- cized the treatment of the incident in the paper. Although only half the persons involved had been ECU students, the Fountainhead, with the SGA, conducted an in-depth in- vestigation, much more thorough than the Greenville Reflector. After it was all over, and all the cases were dropped, the incident was still not forgotten. Much of the sentiment on campus was that the police had instigated the riot and had overreacted with the tear gas. Downtown the opinions were mixed, some people praising the police for their actions, other condoning and others condeming the actions. There was one feeling which was predominant everywhere and that was that such an incident never happens again. Halloween Riot it