Police tried to force the crowd to disperse by weaving through it with police cars. | Courtesy of Wade Tao
The collision of Texas Southern students, an unauthorized “underwear run” and a Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. event at Lynn B. Eusan Park on Tuesday night escalated into a post-election celebratory spectacle that many students described as a riot.
Amidst dancing to a live disc jockey, chants for President Barack Obama and students walking around half-dressed, were disenchanted Republicans standing to the side and shouting into the throng of students and UH Department of Public Safety officers who were not comfortable with the order of events.
“Basically it turned into a huge party,” said creative writing senior Caleb Rogers.
“Everyone gathered in front of Cougar Village cheering for Obama and — this is the funny thing — at the same time, one of the sororities were planning a panty run so the two combined.”
As the TSU students decided to begin disrobing as well, UHDPS officers arrived at the scene — classified as a disturbance — at around 11:40 p.m., intending to disperse the crowd, which had reached 1,000 students and began to edge toward surrounding residence halls.
According to Rogers, the police cars were weaving through students and flashing their lights and sirens to make students leave the area.
UH Executive Director of Media Relations Richard Bonnin said the park was reserved by Phi Beta Sigma for a celebration of 200 students in honor of the University’s first African-American Homecoming queen, Lynn Eusan. The underwear run in the same location was not approved.
“The University did not sanction such an event, and a request to do so was never submitted,” Bonnin said in a statement.
When many participants declined to leave the area, Houston Police Department and TSU police were dispatched at 12:10 a.m. to assist in dispersing the disturbance, said HPD spokesperson Jodi Silva.
“The police asked the crowd to leave; many complied but several students were still hanging around and refused to leave,” said Silva. “There was one female we asked to leave and she repeatedly said she didn’t have to.”
According to Silva, the female UH student shoved the officer when he asked for her identification and attempted to walk her to the patrol vehicle. The officer detained her and was surrounded by a group of her friends.
“(The students) weren’t responding too positively to the aggression and they actually started surrounding him and there was a scuffle that broke out,” said Rogers, who witnessed the incident.
The female was taken into custody and escorted to Harris County Jail, charged with a misdemeanor of resisting arrest.
After the crowd dispersed, students reported damage to vehicles and to a door in Taub Residence Hall, but no injuries were reported.
A call was made the Center for Fraternity and Sorority Life in an attempt to reach Phi Beta Sigma for comment, but it was not returned.
I really hate to hear about this at my University of Houston. This is a place of higher learning and this type of behaviour does not belong there. Shame on the students that participated in this from both Universities.
U hate to hear this because you clearly dot understand school pride and how that brings people together THAT along with the fact that the first black president just got reelected everybody was having fun no fights no confrontations sour bitter people like you didn’t want to see other people having fun instead of having our head up our ass
There are too many lies in this story. Try harder next time, Amanda.
Last time was more fun, noone broke it up. Lowriders on parade with people dancing on the top of them and the call of subwoofers cleared out the moody towers. My friend’s bike was stolen from taub that night as well, but it sounded like last time was more fun.
This article is honestly a misrepresentation of the true nature of this gathering. As a person present, I sensed no negative energy which would insinuate a riot. The purpose of the event was in not related to the election results, a similar event occurs every year during Homecoming. Although I do not agree with everything that happened that night, I do believe that this article is a misrepresentation of the type of energy that was present.
Wade Tao wrote a biased and uninformed article for this Indie run segment. Also note he did not interview any members of Phi Beta Sigma or students from Texas Southern.
wrong link above. ABC Newscast —> http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=8877110&rss=rss-ktrk-article-8877110
If you believe any information in this article is incorrect, feel free to send me an email at [email protected]. We believe in fair and accurate reporting, so if we made any major factual errors, we’ll run a correction.
-Joshua Mann, editor in chief
I am a Proud UH Student, And I participated in this event, it was a show of school spirit, for homecoming week. There was no type of negative energy during this event, i honestly feel like because the majority of the crowd was African-American the UHPD felt like the event would be a threat and things would get out of hand. Other than this CRAPPY ARTICLE the UndieRun got alot of good reviews. NOBODY GOT ARRESTED EITHER. So AMANDA HILLOW dont be a fool, cause only fools speak on things they dont know of…….. peace 🙂
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=8877110&rss=rss-ktrk-article-8877110 —————————-
This article is completely a misinterpretation of every aspect of what happened that night. It should be taken into consideration that this is a University and that there are traditions that we as students are into. Not everything has to go through some form of approval because once again, this is a University not jail. The cops came ready to take anyone they could find to jail, which is not fair. That day had absolutely nothing to do with the election. It was not a riot, and did not concern Obama. Students need to be treated as students not terrorists. Whoever wrote this article was very misinformed and unfair to students who were only keeping up with a tradition in respect to “Cougar Pride” during our homecoming week. The article is wrong ans should be removed.
This has to be the biggest load of crap that I have ever seen ! This is a direct and intentional misrepresentation of what went on that night !
This article is blasphemous. Where did these facts come from? The events that were held hadnothing to do with President Obama. The undie run is a homecoming tradition that had nothing to do with Phi Beta Sigma. No one was violent and there was no sight of hostility the entire night. I honestly feel like these students were discriminated against because of race. It is a reoccurring thing on this campus. Why must a gathering of African American students be considered a riot?
Texas Southern students have every right to come to UH’s campus. This is a public university on public land. Do not demonize them like criminals. They are students perusing higher education.
I can’t believe The Daily Cougar published this falsified story. We have to do better.
It wasn’t only black people there though?
No Dante. There were other races there. Majority of the participants were African American though.
actually no TSU students do not have every right to go to UH after hours. That is trespassing because TSU students paid tuition for TSU, not UH. If they did have every right, the policemen’s arrest would have been unwarrented. As for the tradition, please go run around in your underwear at your own university. Thanks.
But the student that was arrested was a UH student though…actually both were. So that argument is null and void. If UH wants a closed campus throw some brick walls and fences up like Rice and hire security. If not let it be. It seems that it is only a problem when a large group of black students comes out and that is the problem. It is labeled a nuisance and disturbance when it really is just an event with a large group of minorities. In fact all events like this including the one last year were just fine until the police showed up and created a hostile environment.
This article is a complete misrepresentation of what occurred that night and has been written in complete BIAS. I thought that the purpose of journalism was to be objective and report the facts from both sides. Not only are the facts stated in this article utterly false, but not one fraternity members or individuals involved in the police altercation were allowed to voice their story. The police unjustly made an arrest without merit. It is clear that the author of this piece wrote this article with extreme haste and did not wait for all the CORRECT facts to come to light. I ask that the editor remove this article as this is clearly subjective journalism and the students reading it feel the same.
1. Jodi Silva, why were you there if they asked everyone to leave? What were you doing? To me it sounds like you’re lying or were too far to see the truth. EVERYTHING quoted is inaccurate.
2. What sorority planned a undie-run?
3. What damage was done to cars? How many cars? & how does that correlate to this?
So Amanda, what were your intentions of this article? The title speaks on a student arrested, but you spoke on randoms facts that didn’t correlate with the arrest. Your witness, Jodi Silva, gives you information on what she saw, but was one of students who didn’t leave when asked. You mention disenchanted republicans to make it seem like there was political tension, but in reality there wasn’t any. & if the student shoved the officer, why isn’t there any charges on that? Don’t you see how foolish this sounds?
1. Silva is the spokesperson for HPD. It’s like you don’t even know how to read.
2. Undie-run is a homecoming tradition. No sorority planned it. And even if one did, how does that information change the validity of the article.
3. It doesn’t matter how many cars were damaged, and it correlates to this because it happened in concordance with this.
So Julie, did you actually read the article or just come to the comments to complain? Your comment berates the author for random facts, yet you ask her for random facts that are actually wrong. As far as the student shoving the officer, she was taken into custody for resisting arrest. Don’t you see how foolish you sound?
It is a shame that the Daily Cougar would publish an article that has false information. The named organization was in no way interviewed or contacted by this paper. How is it that an event is described as a “riot” when African American students are present. This article should’ve never been published and I feel that this Fraternity is being completely thrown under the bus. The University of Houston is to represent diversity of all students yet you hinder certain students. I can not believe that the fact school spirit was not mentioned one time in the article and that the students were in fact celebrating the University of Houston. How unfortunate it is for this student group to be put in such a negative light.
Yeah…this is biased. It describes the incident as a “collision”, a “spectacle”, and a “riot”–heavy terms that fall out of proportion with the situation. We have here a large celebration comprising of 1,000 students that did not result in any injuries, and at worst this piece mentions a “shove”, made perhaps inappropriately by ONE student, but nevertheless hardly constituting a “riot”. (Really, from what is written here, how am I, the reader, to draw the distinction between a riot and loud election excitement? The framing of this story is ludicrous.) The heavier wording is a transparent attempt to set up an undercurrent of criminality before the readers ever even get to the body of the report.The reporter fails to provide adequate context, and also includes elements unrelated to the central point but meant to induce emotion, especially following so publicized and controversy-riddled an event as a presidential election (for example, see “disenchanted Republicans”). And enlighten me, did no one think to posit the question of WHY a female student might resist arrest? Did we even attempt to come into contact with her? What are we, Fox News?