Route 1: The quiet riot that rocked the city

Somewhere between getting run down by a horse and watching cops dump a kid over a railing, it hit me: Wednesday night will be well-remembered at this university for two reasons. First, our team won a basketball game with about a million different storylines. Second, because we "rioted" in celebration. Call it a riot, but I call it a handful of bad apples spoiling the bunch.

I watched the game at a friend's apartment near Route 1. I figured something must be going on, so afterward I hurried down to get a glimpse of the action. Right as I appeared on the scene, a big crowd of students was forming in the crosswalk by Cornerstone Grill and Loft to jump around and sing our version of "Rock and Roll, Part II." Three kids ripped down a street sign. These kids are probably idiots. I went back home.

About an hour later, I decided to go to R.J. Bentley's with my roommates, as SportsCenter instructed me to do. A nice police officer told me I'd have to take a roundabout way. I thanked him for his time. As I took his suggested route, two other less nice police officers appeared dragging some poor kid in their wake. These men must have disliked the cut of my jib, because they threw the kid they were dragging into me and hollered, "Get back! Get back!" Apparently, I didn't know them like that.

Now, I was sober all of Wednesday — if you'll believe it — so, I was actually more or less rational. I told the cops that one of their colleagues had just told me to walk there. "I don't care!" a big man shouted at me. "Get back, son!" Holy crap, my dad's a Prince George's County police officer?!

At this point my head was swimming. All I had seen of the "rioting" was three kids tear down a sign and literally everything else was peaceful. No bricks into buildings. No couches burning. The story of the night, at least to me, was how the riot police had come out and generally been dickheads to everybody.

I don't disagree with the police presence on Wednesday night. Things could have gotten out of hand easily, thanks to a very small and loud majority that made serious trouble. What I disagree with was the police violence. I'm hearing too many stories about kids getting the shit beaten out of them for just trying to go from Point A to Point B.

I figured I'd wake up Thursday and hear about how these cops had gone on a power trip and beaten down a bunch of innocent students who were just trying to walk to the bars peacefully.

But all the news was about us rioting and setting fires and how we've destroyed our good name to the public and all of this nonsense. It wasn't a riot. A couple kids were drunk idiots and did stupid stuff, which happens literally every night on Route 1. But to spread this ridiculous hyperbole, that 1,500 kids somehow each set fires and rioted, is irresponsible.

Things, to me, were relatively peaceful out there until the dudes with the armor, the horses and the tear gas rolled in. These guys ran amuck with no regard for the law, inciting violence for no reason.

Now that sounds like a riot.

Rob Gindes is a senior journalism major. He can be reached at gindes at umdbk dot com.