Part 3: Riot at the doorstep....please don't destroy Sewall...

So yes indeed, two hours after it started the damn riot was still in full swing. By this time it sounded like it was near the buissness district of the Hill (ie in front of the Fox and Tulagi's). We kept walking around as far away from the sound as possible and watched firetrucks and paramedics fly past us, as well as cop cars...

We finally made it to Londyn's car, we were cold as hell and met some interesting folks along the way, including a very accurate Jack Sparrow from Pirates, accent and all. The sky as wel walked up the Hill looked so sureal because it was this strange blue-gray glow. I was having fun try to point out constellations and walk. So as we walked up to Londyn's car we saw, Lafayette police cars and we knew that the riot must be HUGE.

Londyn's car Baby was undamaged and thank goodness because I would have died if anything had happened to her car.

We decided to drive toward Chataqua to the South and then catch Broadway back up to Sewall. Jesse figured Broadway wouldn't be closed, I mean hell....they'd never close down Broadway for a riot.

Well actually it was closed from Euclid all the way to University.

Yeah. Intense.

So we took Euclid through campus and Londyn dropped us off at the Physics builidng so she could drive back to Denver.

Jesse, Travis and I walked back to Sewall. We talked to a few people walking away from Sewall who were totally freaking out and saying they wouldn't let us near the building. WTF, I am an RA....of corse I can get in...geez.

Sewall was fine, however the riot now sat at Broadway and Univeristy, just down the street from our builing. You could see the little riot tanks going up the street. I threw on a real outfit (I was still dressed as a 1950's housewife) and grabbbed my duty badge. I began walked the building and checking up on residents. They seemed to be doing okay. I walked outside in the front courtyard and you could smell the tear gas wafting toward out builidng. I just barely missed the trashcan fire that went on in front of the building, Nick put it out. I stayed out front and watched residents stream in and told them to go inside because they were congreating in front. Then I walked up to the Hill around 3am....picked up a trigger for a tear gas canister, it basically looks like the top of a granade. Took a look at all the broken glass and then decided I need to go to bed because I had a radio show to do in the morning. By the time I walked up to the Hill, the riots had moved and apparently went on until 4:30am.

So what caused the riot?

I later found out from the paper (and riding the Skip bus with some Boulder County office workers on my way back to campus a few days after the riot).
So what happened was that at 10th and College, a bunch of kids decided to have a block party on the 30th. They got a permit from Boulder county office to have the party from 12pm-2am. However, there is a noise ordinance on the Hill at 10pm. They should have never been issued the permit. Apparently the County worker just follwed procedure but didn't even think about what he was doing.. Further, Boulder police should have been notified about the permit by the permit holder and the County office....they never were. The 30th comes and the cops show up at 10pm to enforce the noise ordinance, the crowd won't leave. The cops remain present and try to get the crowd to go home and disperse. Around midnight (we were lucky in that we just BARELY missed being stuck in the middle of the riot in Londyn's car) the crowd begins to get pissed at the cops prescence and that the cops are trying to get them to go home. The crowd is very much intoxicated.

So they riot.