Over a dozen police officers and four ambulances arrived at a University of Rhode Island fraternity party in South Kingston Thursday night when 500 people surrounded a fight that spread into the street.
Four people were arrested, and several students were injured. One police officer sustained a sprained ankle while making an arrest.
The recent incident coincides with police efforts in neighboring Narragansett to crack down on college partying and highlights the challenges law enforcement faces in policing rowdy college students who, in extreme cases, confuse the right to party with the right to fight.
This year, Narragansett police added three officers to a patrol shift from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. in an area with many URI off-campus houses. Last spring, Narragansett passed an open-container law, which prohibits the possession of an open container of alcohol in a public place.
Providence police have also worked to keep partying students in check.
"Providence has had an open-container ordinance for several years and has enforced these ordinances pretty regularly," said Mark Porter, Brown's chief of police and director of public safety.
This year, the department received complaints from neighbors of Brown students living off-campus about red cups that students had thrown in streets and in private gardens after parties. "I do think we have a problem this year," said Providence Police Lt. John Ryan.
The open-container law is not primarily targeted at students and is used to regulate people walking at night with open containers in parks and in the streets, Ryan said.
An Aug. 15 town ordinance allows Narragansett police to impose a $400 fine per leaseholder for noise levels exceeding 65 decibels from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and 55 decibels from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. Providence has a similar ordinance that makes illegal noise levels above 50 decibels between 8 p.m. and 7 a.m. and 55 decibels between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m.
"We use it every week," Ryan said, adding that he enforced the ordinance six times in the previous week.
"The first couple weeks are tough because everybody wants to have fun, and sometimes students don't realize that they are next to neighbors and are disturbing them," Porter said.
Brown students generally "live up to the expectation of being a good neighbor," Porter said. "But at times, we have issues dealing with noise, and Providence and Brown have taken a proactive approach in dealing with noise and with students living off-campus."
