Police work to contain thousands at Cedar Fest

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A few thousand people descended upon Cedar Village tonight for Cedar Fest, where police have patrolled a rowdy crowd that has shouted various Spartan chants, occasionally tossed beer cans and bottles into the air and sparked several small fires.

East Lansing and MSU police were armed in minimal protective gear as of 12:30 a.m. as several hundreds of people crowded Cedar Street, East Lansing police Capt. Tom Johnstone said at about midnight. Johnstone said police have not equipped themselves with riot gear, but have donned helmets and other smaller protection after a few officers were hit — but not injured — by thrown bottles.

A few police officers scanned the scene with video cameras throughout the night, and many students embraced the police presence by snapping photographs of themselves with officers.

Police have arrested an unknown number of drunken and disorderly people, including several females for exposing themselves, Johnstone said. He added there is no known number of people hurt or injured in the fracas.

“Obviously, we’re managing the whole thing, trying to arrest people that commit serious offenses,” Johnstone said. “Most people are pretty good, but typical, the minority are the ones doing stuff than can cause problems.”

A puff of smoke filled the center of Cedar Street at about 11:50 p.m., sending people running to the street’s edges, but the smoke is not believed to have been tear gas.

Supply chain management senior Stephen Cornillie, who was a student during the April 2005 tear gassings in Cedar Village and downtown East Lansing following an MSU loss in the NCAA basketball Final Four, said the difference between this year’s Cedar Fest is “night and day” from the quieter 2005 event.

The event partially attracted people through Facebook.com, where about 7,000 people had registered to attend the party.

“When it comes down to it, what is responsible for this is Facebook,” said Cornielle, a Cedar Village resident. “Word got out on Facebook, and you know the phrase, ‘If you build it, they will come,’ they built it and people came.”

Saturday’s warm weather — the first registered day of a temperature higher than 60 degrees this year — might have also contributed to the ruckus.

“The weather has been crappy all winter, all of the sudden, you get a 60 degree day with a little bit of sunshine and this is what you get,” Cornillie said. “Everybody is so ready to break out of the winter itch, and it’s resulted in mass chaos this time.”

Amanda Harris, a biology and Spanish junior, said she and her friends found out about the party through Facebook.com, but didn’t think it would happen after the men’s basketball team was knocked out of the tournament a week ago.

“I just kind of associated it with MSU getting into the Final Four, so I assumed no one would show up,” Harris said. “But this morning, I woke up at 10 a.m. to blaring music, so I kind of figured it would get crazy. I just didn’t think it would get to this magnitude.”

Several members of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Lansing branch were on hand to track the event and advise students of their rights.

“We’re here as neutral observers,” said Carol Koenig, the branch’s president. “It helps to be on the ground to talk about these things later, about what went well and what didn’t go so well.”

Zoology freshman Sami Beckley made the trip to Cedar Fest after seeing footage of the crowd on television late Saturday night and wasn’t impressed.

“It’s kind of dumb,” Beckley said. “There’s too many people and everybody’s drunk and it’s kind of pointless. It’s not standing for anything, so it’s just a big drunken fest.”

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