PLYMOUTH, N.H. – An estimated five to seven hundred Plymouth State University students congre-gated around a large makeshift bonfire in front of 28 Russell Street Monday night around 11:30 p.m. after the Boston Red Sox clinched the American League Victory over the Oakland Athletics.
Hundreds of students from on-campus dormitories and off cam-pus residences collected on campus in celebration. Smith and Grafton residents and Mary Lyon residents all gathered in front of the Hartman Union Building. Word of a spon-taneous celebratory fire on Russell Street spread, and the growing mob traveled southward, across campus. Police and officials discouraged the group from blocking traffic on Langdon Street, which led to their eventual congregation in the park-ing lot of Boyd Hall. Students from other residence halls then joined the crowd. “It was like the running of the bulls”, explained Sophomore Brooke Thornton, a Pemigewasset Hall resident. “People said hey, we’re going this way…so we just went”.
By midnight the Russell Street riot began to look threatening. The numbers grew into the hundreds with members’ enthusiasm in-creasing. Campus and Plymouth police looked on as the large mob chanted pro-Red Sox/anti-Yankee sentiments to the beat of a bongo drum. The crowd shouted such phrases as, “Cowboy Up”, “Screw the Curse”, “Johnny Damon” and the ever-popular, “Yankees Suck.” Chaos ensued when members of the large crowed continued to fuel the fire with any flammables available, including couches, entire picnic tables, and part of a fence that bordered Russell Street.
By 12:30 p.m. the fire began to die. The crowd began to chant for more wood, and an additional couch was added to the fire. Residents of 28 Russell Street placed speakers in the apartment windows playing the song Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” among others. An unidentified male student then proceeded to jump on the couch as it sat burning. Another man urinated in the fire, which sparked great enthusiasm from the crowd. A few even decided to run through the flames. Students directly involved in the fire wore shirts and clothing over their faces and heads to protect from the flames and possibly to hide their identities. At its peak, the fire reached up to twenty five feet, threatening to scorch live electrical wiring. Police Departments from as far as Franconia were called to the scene. Five state and campus police cars sat at the corner of Pleasant and Russell Streets for the duration of the incident, unable to do anything without proper backup. Police dogs were brought to the scene, as officers merely hoped to contain the crowd until backup arrived.
At approximately 1 am, after two hours of debauchery, an estimated fifty police officers in full riot gear began to approach the mob from the south end of Russell Street. Officers were told not to carry night sticks or use unnecessary force. The officers were a rather intimidating site and the crowd was quick to move north-ward towards Pleasant and Langdon Street. Students were then redirected back onto campus. The police were not alone in their attempts to hinder the great crowds. Landlords, town’s people, and school officials were all drawn to the