Election night proves to be trouble for law enforcement

As the presidential election winds down to it’s final moments, silence is shared across Long Beach’s campus. Presidential nominee Barak Obama is finally announced as the winner and screams of both joy and anger are heard.

No one could have predicted the outbursts that were heard from several large groups of students supporting opposing sides of the election. Screeches of a group of students from outside H building of the dormitories resulted in a noise disturbance dispatch.

“F*** Obama,” is shouted from the second story of one building in parkside commons just after the announcement. This comment catapulted what could be seen as a small scale riot outside the young man’s window. The uproar lasted 15 minutes before both parties agreed to disagree.

Disruptions like these continued throughout the night, paving the way for many calls about quiet hours to the police dispatcher. Not every call resulted in a citation or warning however, many of the students had dispersed by the time officers responded to the scene.

“We had more commotion that night than we did on Halloween,” said the dispatcher.
Eventually, three police cruisers sat outside parkside commons in order to respond to the site immediately if there were need for their assistance.

Standing outside in parking lot 14 D one student could be heard commenting on the ruckus, “this is outrageous, what’s with all the yelling?” she said.

In the morning, broken bottles of liquor were found riddling the streets and parking lots of the school. It seems as if the campaign lended itself to outright chaos for many groups of students that were still on the premises during the announcement.

The Nugget Pub & Grill was a hotspot Tuesday night during the finale of the election. National news syndicate NBC even made a point of appearing for two hours during the pre-party.



While the scene inside the Nugget was on the milder side, officials were prepared for any type of riot that may have occurred. A police cruiser was parked outside the pub through part of the viewing, as were several officers to make sure there was no disturbance of peace.

Despite the overall hostile environment on campus, no arrests were made that night. For maintenance crews, it was just another day at work as they cleaned up beer cans and broken glass from the commotion that occurred the night before.