The Associated Press
BELLINGHAM — Hundreds of college-age revelers — thwarted in efforts to continue a large party — threw projectiles at police who responded with pepper spray to disperse them, officials said.
Multiple partiers were arrested during the melee late Saturday and early today in Bellingham, according to Police Sgt. Mike Scanlon.
“There was drinking, it became disorderly and pretty much an out and out riot,” he told The Associated Press.
He said the unrest began as police dispersed a noisy party that had drawn a few hundred people.
Lauren Boushay, 20, a Western Washington University junior who was at the apartment complex party, said it broke up around 9 p.m. and police officers politely asked people to go home.
“It was set up to be . . . this really nice night and nothing reckless or ridiculous like it turned into,” she said today, noting that the party wasn’t connected to the riots and that people lingered and a crowd started forming a block away.
Many of the revelers then moved to nearby Laurel Park, where they were joined by even more people, Scanlon said, calling it a “large, intoxicated, disorderly crowd.”
The situation “finally boiled over,” he said. “They began hurling projectiles at police.”
Up to 500 people had converged on the park as police worked to disperse them, at one point using pepper spray, Scanlon said.
It took about 45 minutes to clear the area and restore order.
Boushay said she saw several people throwing bottles and beer cans at police officers and provoking them. She saw multiple officers get hit by bottles.
“They got this horrible ignorant mob mentality,” she said. “It was so sad and disrespectful to watch.”
Scanlon said that there were multiple arrests, but he didn’t have an exact figure. And he said he didn’t know if there were any injuries.
Bellingham is home to Western Washington University.
WWU spokesman Paul Cocke said this morning he didn’t know whether any students were arrested or other details of what happened.
“We’re looking into the situation right now,” he said.