Sunday, April 5, 2015

Last Call For The State Street Riots

Hey UK fans?  You lost.  That sucks being that close to 40-0 and a national title.  What's worse is you guys promptly proceeded to riot, even if papers refuse to call it that.

Thousands of Kentucky fans shared the suspense, and then the grief, of Saturday night's game after cramming into bars, yards and viewing parties at the Kentucky Theatre and other locations.

On State Street, which had been the epicenter of previous post-game celebrations, downcast expressions and stunned silence quickly gave way to chants of "(expletive) Wisconsin."

Bottles were thrown into the air and fires were set and quickly extinguished by firefighters, who asked for police escorts into the rowdy crowd.

There were several reports of assaults, and fights, and reports of people with minor injuries, such as facial lacerations, a head injury and a foot injury from broken glass.

City officials said 29 people had been arrested, and at least three people had been taken to the hospital. The city said police used pepper spray to break up some fights, and the city brought street sweepers in to defuse the crowd around 2 a.m. City officials described the crowd as "rowdy, and at times hostile."

"We're trying to get out of here. It's a little too chaotic," said Brandon Heinrich. "It's different than if we had won."

Jackie Thompson described the scene as "pretty hostile right now. I just think everyone's kinda at a loss of words and doesn't really know what else to do."

The Lexington Herald-Leader here goes out of its way to call this anything but a riot.  29 people got arrested, but it was all okay because they were college basketball fans, right?

But Ferguson?  Yeah, "thugs, criminals, rioters, looters".  Something to think about next time, right?

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/04/04/3784849_thousands-of-fans-pack-bars-yards.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

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