Evergreen bans concerts until security methods are reviewed

By Venice Buhain | The Olympian • Published February 20, 2008

OLYMPIA – There won't be any concerts at The Evergreen State College while a new committee reviews the college's security procedures after a postconcert riot early Friday morning.

Photos: Evergreen community addresses last week's riot

Hundreds of students, faculty members and staff members filled Lecture Hall 1 on Tuesday afternoon to air concerns about an altercation in which concertgoers looted and vandalized several Thurston County Sheriff's Office patrol cars. The incident occurred after a concert by the hip-hop group Dead Prez, which postponed a concert set for Friday night in Tacoma because of the riot.

Vice President of Student Affairs Art Costantino told the crowd that he was not certain how long the review would take, but that the committee would work as quickly as it could so concerts could resume.

"We need to be begin to look at how we do concert planning," he said. "Clearly, that is a message. An examination is necessary."

He said after the meeting that other events, such as lectures and art shows, will continue. The committee will be led by Phyllis Lane, the dean of student and academic support services, and will include staff and faculty members and students.

People at the forum spread the blame for the riot. Some said they were disappointed in the behavior of police, who witnesses said used pepper spray and clubs to move people away from the patrol cars. Others criticized the behavior of concertgoers, who overturned one of the cars and took a laptop computer from one of the vehicles.

"There should be no fear on our campus. This instilled fear in our officers as well as students that day," student Victor Sanders told the crowd.

Evergreen professor Peter Bohmer said he was concerned about the increasing reliance on police to control crowds.

He said in part: "So I really urge people here not to cooperate with campus police, administration. I think we need to deal with this among ourselves rather than use a police state in a period with increasingly a militarized police state that's trying more and more to restrict us."

Others said the distrust of police resulted from some students' experiences during protests near the Port of Olympia in November, when police arrested 17 people during a week when a military ship was docked there. Some protesters accused officers of using excessive force, firing pepper spray into protesters' eyes and repeatedly hitting them with batons.

The city's cost for dealing with the port protests will be at least $112,000, city manager Steve Hall said in early December.

Friday's rioting caused between $35,000 and $50,000 in damage to four Thurston County Sheriff's Office patrol cars, sheriff's Lt. Chris Mealy said.

At a videoconference in the library, a member of Dead Prez's management group, Evil Twin Booking Agency in Philadelphia, told students that a concert scheduled at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma had been postponed.

"Every single show, people are expressing concern that there will be a riot," Scott Beibin said. This is the first such incident that the group, which has been releasing music for 10 years, has been involved in, he said.

Beibin reserved judgment about who was at fault for the incident's escalation, saying that not all of the facts are in.

"It makes me sad that this was a hard-to-resolve situation," he said.