EAST LANSING — The Facebook account holder who instigated a Cedar Fest street party that led to a riot here Saturday night could face criminal charges, East Lansing Police Public Information Officer Kym Johnson told Michigan Messenger.

“We’re going after anyone who had any part of getting this party started,” Johnson said. “We are going to do our best to prosecute those individuals who started this whole resurrection of this Cedar Fest all the way to the last person we arrest tonight and tomorrow.”

Michigan Messenger attempted to contact the unknown Facebook account holder Friday. However, a person calling from a “private” line called asking what Michigan Messenger was. The male caller identified himself as a friend of Cedar Fest on Facebook and said the account holder would call back. No return call was received, but the Facebook account did send an email calling for a peaceful street party.

Police said they have no problem with street parties and they are used to them in springtime. About half of the 52 people arrested Saturday night were Michigan State University students. “We expect you to have parties, small parties, reasonable parties,” Johnson said.

Carol Koenig, president of the Lansing-Jackson Branch of the ACLU, said she was not sure what crime police could charge the Facebook account holder with. “I think that gets a little tricky, too,” she said.

Continued – Koening and nine other ACLU volunteers monitored the altercations Saturday night in which 3,000 to 4,000 people took part. “I would have to look at the charges they would bring. I am trying to have an imagination to figure out what law they would use. It’s hard to comment because of that. One person can’t be responsible for other people’s behavior, particularly thousands of people’s behavior.”

Johnson said there were likely more arrests made Saturday than in the infamous ’80s Cedar Fest riots because police had new laws to work with this time around. Among the laws are a strict “Minor in Possession” of alcohol law and new rioting laws. Under the new laws, anyone convicting of riot-related crimes can also be expelled by any publicly funded state university or college they are attending and banned from attending any other public educational institution for up to two years.

A press release from the East Lansing police on Friday warned possible participants that illegal activities in groups of four or more are considered rioting under Michigan law. Watching a riot is also considered a crime, as is failure to leave an unlawful assembly.

Koenig said she was concerned about those who might be charged with crimes stemming from watching a riot. Overall, though, Koenig said she and other observers thought the police were restrained on Saturday.

“For the most part, when we did our debriefing, most of my observers felt the police acted with an amazing amount of restraint considering the officers were hit with bottles, hands, etc.,” Koenig said. “They seemed to use a lot of creative actions to prevent violence.”

Among the “creative actions” Koenig praised were the use of limited arrests, putting spotlights on wrongdoing in the crowd, and the use of nonlethal, nonchemical munitions like smoke grenades and noisy flash bang grenades. She also praised the use of undercover officers in the crowd.

Koenig did say, however, that there were some concerns raised about how close flash bangs were launched to the crowd, as well as where people could go to avoid unlawful assembly. She said one of the observers felt it was confusing when a volunteer was trapped on the east end of Cedar Village as tear gas was released. Koenig also said there were concerns the crowd might not have heard calls to break up.

“My observers came to me initially and said they (the crowd) can’t hear it (the announcement), they (the crowd) can’t understand it,” Koenig said. She said she informed East Lansing Police Chief Tom Wibert, who said he was aware of the problem. The announcement was read four times, from two different locations.

Koenig does not believe that failure to hear the warning was an excuse for people to be caught in the middle.

“Anybody who didn’t know what was happening had to be too intoxicated to tell,” she said regarding the crowd. Before the announcements were made, police had donned riot gear and had formed up into lines in preparation for breaking up the gathering.