Why tear gas and trouble hang in the air of East Lansing

[COMMENTARY] Nothing says springtime in East Lansing like the haze of tear gas hanging over Grand River Avenue in the wee hours of the morning. This is said in jest, but based in reality.

What happened on Saturday night at a renewal of Cedar Fest was a riot. It was not a party. It was not a protest against the Iraq war, as one woman attempted to convince the media. This was a plain and simple riot. People came to the event intent on two things: getting drunk and getting tear gassed.

And getting drunk is the key factor in everything from Cedar Fest in the ’80s, to the Gunson Street riots in 1997, to the 1999 Munn Field riots, to the 2005 NCAA basketball disturbances. Alcohol was absolutely the key ingredient that fueled all of these events, and it will likely fuel more in the future.

I was not around for the Cedar Fest events in the ’80s that involved widespread destruction and numerous injuries, but I have reported on all the riots since 1997. I have seen excessive police force; I have seen the use of tear gas when it was not necessary. I have also seen East Lansing on fire, cars overturned and the business district attacked by vandals. I have been hit with bottles thrown from crowds, and I have seen officers come out of crowds with bumps, lumps and lacerations.

I have also seen the rioters, who claim to be peaceful every time one of these events happens, come out dripping blood.

Yes, alcohol is a huge factor in all of these events. But there is more to this than meets the eye: The role of the police.

Continued -In the summer of 1997, I was working for the Towne Courier in East Lansing. That summer I received a tip from then-City Councilman  Bill Sharp that the downtown businesses were experiencing a problem with young people, many of them high school students. So I went into the downtown business district and interviewed the youths who were allegedly causing all the problems. They told a very different story, one of police harassment.

So who was I to believe, the business owners or the young people? My boss and I discussed it, and made a decision that I would go “undercover.” I shaved my head, put on a Marilyn Manson T-shirt and cut-up jeans and carried a shoulder bag with my recorder in it. The day we launched our investigation was the Fourth of July. But there were no young people in the downtown area and nothing happened. It was a bust.

But a week or so later I went back in and, boy, did I get an eyeful. Because I was in street disguise and with a group of typical young people, I saw police harassment firsthand as everyone was searched for marijuana even though there was no evidence of use.

I explained to my then co-workers and editor that this harassment showed me that there was a ton of repressed youthful anger, that it was going to explode, and most likely soon. In October 2007, just a few short months later, it did erupt in the Gunson Street riots after a student house party got out of control.

Since then, (“the issue of” removed–anger fueled the riot, not the issue) anger at police, city officials and the Michigan State University administration has fueled the tensions that have broken into riots. In 1999, young people were angry over MSU closing Munn Field — where everyone tail-gated before football games — to alcohol. They rioted in response. In 2005, after MSU lost in the NCAA Final Four, young people poured into the streets. There were so many people downtown and in Cedar Village that police decided to tear gas the crowds in what they saw as a civil disturbance but participants called a celebration.

MSU and East Lansing officials have worked to overcome the perception of repressive police, the us-versus-them mentality. They have held student-police basketball games and other community-building events. Community police officers now are on hand in many of the student housing areas.

But still, last Saturday night, 11 years after I first started covering riots in East Lansing, I heard it again. Many in the crowd said they were there just to party but that police abuses led to the riot, and that the police were writing tickets for students just to raise money for the city.

So the question lingers — will a riot happen again in East Lansing? I think the answer, sadly, is yes. It will be another eruption of frustration over a perception of a police harassment, fueled by more alcohol than anyone should consume in one night. And once again, the haze of tear gas will hang over Grand River Avenue in the wee hours of the morning.