A Wesleyan Senior’s First-Hand Account from Fountain Ave.

Posted on May 16, 2008
Filed Under News, The Daily Prereq | By Jon Golbe

Rashida Richardson describes her encounter with police last night:

“They were trying to get everyone to move and we were standing on the sidewalk. I heard somebody threw something at a cop or a cop car, and then they started shooting rubber bullets at the people standing on the sidewalks and the students in the streets. I was on the driveway and the dog jumped up from the curb and bit me on the knee. And the cop didn’t really pull the dog back. I jumped back, the cop didn’t really try to restrain it. He was holding the dog by a leash, but he wasn’t restraining the dog from running up at students.

“I called 911 telling them that students were getting injured and I was bit by a dog, and she said police were already there, they weren’t going to send more. EMT and EMS were at the end of the street (at Church) but they couldn’t get in to Fountain because they were blocked by a line of police cars…”

“The police were telling us that we had to leave [Fountain] because if there were an emergency, an ambulance wouldn’t be able to get through, but here they were creating this emergency.

“Later when I told a cop one of your dogs bit me, he said ‘You shouldn’t have been in the street.’

“I explained how I have freedom of assembly and [the street] is Wesleyan-owned, and I was on the sidewalk anyway. He said that I have ‘the right to shut the fuck up.’

“After that, they started to throw out pepper gas, and because I have really bad asthma, I started to have an asthma attack and I fell between two cars, coughing. Two of my friends grabbed me up and dragged me into a house.”

(Photo courtesy of Wesleying)

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Comments

3 Responses to “A Wesleyan Senior’s First-Hand Account from Fountain Ave.”

  1. G on May 16th, 2008 6:25 pm

    Fountain is not wesleyan owned.

  2. joeyv on May 17th, 2008 6:54 am

    Rubber bullets ? Shot at students, oh my,lions and tigers and bears oh my. Remember Kent State kids…we are living in a police state.

  3. alumnus on May 17th, 2008 11:28 am

    The rubber bullets rumor happened in ‘03, the last time this happened. It’s just kids not realizing what the pepper balls are.

    And yeah, “Fountain is Wesleyan-owned” is just stupid.

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