Bloomsburg Riots

Here where I live, in the small college town of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, the students gathered and had their annual block party over the weekend. Usually things go pretty smoothly. Just the standard kid getting a little too drunk, occassional vandalism, things of that nature.

But this weekend was a whole other story. I personally have been out of school for over 10 years now so I did not see any of this first hand, and honestly I was shocked at how big it actually was. I had heard there was some rioting going on, but back when I had gone to block party a few times 10 years ago or so, the worst thing I ever saw was a bunch of drunk kids throwing beer bottles all over the place.

That area of student housing was closed down several years ago and has been replaced with a bunch of new dormitories.

Anyway, here are 3 videos of the event. Two of them are from the University's online Newspaper itself - BloomUtoday.com, and the third one I found is one that was filmed by a random student. There probably are or will be several more uploaded in the near future. I personally just feel that they need to be made public.

While the students totally took things too far, I'm pretty shocked that the police had to show up in the areas new Bearcat and proceed to fire teargas at them... its some crazy stuff going on.

Warning: The students are very intoxicated and there is LOTS of swearing going on throughout the videos.

Heh.... did anyone happen to catch the irony of the "rioters" chanting USA USA USA?

This is what happens when a few people at the top steal all hope of any sort of happy future from an entire generation of youths!

Expect this to become more common as the US government makes it ever more plain that they are not looking out for the best interests of the American people!

P.S: That's not even close to a riot, and the fact that the local PD brought out an armored vehicle to "subdue" what was going on is one more blatant indicator that you are only "free" in this country if you "choose" to accept the status quo and, for those of us without trust funds, our rapidly downward spiraling standard of living.

Embarrassing! How dare they chant USA!

Little worthless pieces of.

Corporal punishment, we should look in to it. Yank their pants down, and tan some hides in full few of the public.
That'll learn 'em a lesson.

-Thats really disturbing.

This merging of the Police and the Military is frightening.. A militant Police force has only one enemy and that is the people. And our Police Force is becoming more of a Military by the day.

Yea unfortunately I have a feeling it's a sign of things to come. While I feel the kids had no right to be instigating the police, I also have no clue why they showed up in the first place.

My best guess is something else happened such as a fight or people complained about the noise - no clue how or why the SWAT team ended up showing up in a Bearcat...

Just to kinda give a better picture of where I live though, the population here is only around 20-22k, and consists mainly of college students now. It's kind of like a miniature version of State College, with the town's economy revolving around the University - which has been expanding itself for years.

Coming to a city near YOU....

But you won't be partying much when it happens.

Only time will tell.. It's sad that stuff like this goes completely unnoticed these days, but hey a lot more important stuff is going completely unnoticed too - just makes me wonder what the hell else is going on in the world right now or has happened in the last week or two... On second though, maybe I don't want to know. Back to my beer.

I am speechless right now. It has been a LONG time since I was a student in the dorms but has it really changed that much?
Its a college block party, did they not expect drinking? Maybe I am wrong but I think that it could have been handled without an amored vehicle. Did they now expect that to get everyone worked up, or was that the plan in the beginng?

Some mornings when I wake up I hope that the last couple of years have been a bad nightmare. Then I turn on the phone, tv, computer,etc. and just see more of the same. Very very sad.

Having trouble copying the story but police used tear gas and pepper spray in a similar situation at Colorado State University.

Same story, students took things too far, but was the reaction warranted? Can't help thinking about Kent State when I read stuff like this.

m.upi.com...

An update on this thread just over a year later, at this years annual block party, the police did not use the Bearcat, and actually tried to remain civil. The paper said that some students were seen shaking hands with officers after receiving citations for crossing/drinking in streets due to open container law, and they used bikes and foot to walk around and surprisingly, from what I've heard, was a good block party for 2014! a reply to: Time2Think