here's a synopsis of homecoming weekend...freakin crazy.
Troopers arrest 94 in sweep for alcohol
Shippensburg students warned of enforcement during homecoming
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
BY MATT MILLER
Of Our Carlisle Bureau
SHIPPENSBURG - State troopers on foot, in cars and on horseback -- and some with dogs -- arrested 94 Shippensburg University students accused of underage drinking and rowdiness during homecoming weekend.
The Thursday-through-Sunday "enforcement blitz" around the Shippensburg Twp. campus netted the most arrests yet made in a single sweep by troopers from the Carlisle barracks.
Those arrests came even after police and university officials repeatedly warned students that illegal drinking and out-of-control partying would be targeted. Troopers have been nabbing drunken and disorderly students nearly every weekend since classes began in August.
"With the steps we took in the past few weeks, I thought the kids would have gotten a little smarter," Sgt. Steven Junkin, who led the blitz, said yesterday.
"Some of them argued with us. They thought, because it was homecoming, we were being unfair in arresting them," he said. "I'd tell them, 'What does homecoming have to do with you acting like an animal?'"
He said he began planning the blitz months ago because troopers working near campus cited persistent drinking-related problems. Troopers from other barracks, the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement and drug-sniffing dogs were called in for the sweep.
"The emphasis ... was on alcohol-related offenses, as well as those criminal acts which degrade the quality of the Shippensburg community, such as obscene language, loud noise, littering, public urination and fighting," Junkin said. "This gesture was made so that students would have a realistic sense of the community's standards."
Junkin said he hoped that message would have come through in letters police sent to students and by troopers who went door-to-door in the last few weeks warning they would target alcohol offenders.
University officials, including President Anthony Ceddia, told students repeatedly not to commit such offenses, school spokesman Pete Gigliotti said.
Fifty-one arrests were for underage drinking, which can lead to a driver's license suspension. There were 19 disorderly conduct arrests, 14 for public drunkenness, three for drunken driving, three for scattering rubbish and three for fleeing officers.
School officials are notified of arrests and take disciplinary action, including expulsion, Junkin said.
At least one student, Curtis L. Montague, 21, of Shippensburg, was placed in Cumberland County Prison. Police said a trooper saw Montague urinating in a yard on Richard Avenue. He gave the trooper a false name and fled, they said.
Montague was caught with help from mounted troopers and was charged with escape, giving false identification, disorderly conduct and public drunkenness, police said. He was released on $5,000 bail.
"This is a serious issue," Gigliotti said. "One of the things we tell students is, 'This is your home. We expect you to treat it that way.'
"But this is a societal problem," he said. "We're battling a multibillion-dollar [alcohol] industry" whose advertising, he said, targets young adults.
He stressed that the "vast majority" of the school's 6,500 undergraduate students aren't causing problems.
Shippensburg Twp. Supervisor Steve Oldt, who has two sons attending the university, applauded the blitz.
"I have a son who's a freshman. He's been warned," Oldt said. "If the students would just listen, we wouldn't have these problems."
Junkin said the sweeps will continue.
Gigliotti said he expects a long battle.
"We're chipping away at the problem," he said. "We're making headway."
MATT MILLER: 249-2006 or
mmiller@patriot-news.com