4 students attend Tuesday meeting
It’s only a quarter-mile, 21-year-old Chad Biele thought to himself as he headed home from Pavlov’s last Monday. Plus, I’m a guy — who’s going to bother me?
But as he walked home along a dark Laurens Street out of Five Points, someone came up behind him and grabbed the back of his shirt. He immediately started running, but another assailant jumped out in front of him and punched him in the face.
“When I got up, I was dazed,” the fourth-year public relations student recalled.
His wallet was gone and his phone snapped in half.
But that wasn’t the worst part, Biele said. A police officer, who had discovered him lying on the ground, he said, was accosting him for public drunkenness and leading him into the back of a patrol car.
Biele posted his story, which he called “a metaphor for what’s going on,” to the Facebook group “Fight Back for 5points.”
With 6,600 members, the group has become an online forum for students to give their input on the recent trend of violence in Five Points and the area’s policing.
The bar district was rocked two weeks ago when a random shooting and two assaults happened over the course of a night. Police have since ramped up their patrols and spent thousands of dollars to secure the area Saturday night after the Georgia football game.
In response, Student Government held a forum of another sort Tuesday — this one in the Russell House Theater.
Aside from SG representatives, only a handful of students attended.
Student Body President Kenny Tracy acknowledged the planning had been last-minute; the promotion consisted of him posting about the event in the “Fight Back” group the night before and his press secretary, Emily Cooper, sending a press release to The Daily Gamecock.
He talked with the sparse crowd nonetheless, asking for any suggestions for how police and the university could work together to curb crime in the popular bar district.
A broadening of options for underage students, such as live music and college nights, and various adjustments to policing methods were tossed around in discussion. Tracy and the group agreed that communication with police and city officials is crucial. He promised to bring students’ ideas to USC President Harris Pastides and Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin.
Biele said he’d seen Tracy’s post on Facebook but had a class at the same time and couldn’t attend.
“Fight Back for 5Points” founders Liz McIntyre and Paige Sharkey also had other commitments and weren’t present. But they loved the idea of broadening the discussion and incorporating SG into their movement.
“I didn’t find out about it until 3 p.m.,” Sharkey said. “I would have been the first to go.”
The two stressed their group is also working toward a tangible solution; they’ve encouraged members to post constructive comments to keep it from being a message board for disgruntled students. They have scheduled meetings with the Five Points Association, and a contingent of the “Fight Back” group plans on attending Columbia City Council next week. Tracy did so last week.
“Fight Back” and SG seem to be operating toward similar goals. They both hope to increase communication with the city and make it clear to the community that the thousands of students who live here care about its safety issues and how they’re addressed, members of both said.
But Tracy implored students: If you’re serious about the issues, make an effort beyond posting in the group.
“There are a lot of passionate people here. These are the kind of people I want to work with,” he said. “There are clearly a lot of passionate people out there, too. I want to hear from them more directly than I do.
“There’s always something to face-to-face interaction. You can see the passion and hear the tone.”
He promised he’d plan — and better advertise — another forum in the future. When interviewed, Sharkey and McIntyre said they’d attend and promote it to their group.
Biele said while that’s great, he wants to see results.
“The forums are a good start, but we need to keep having open dialogue with police,” he said. “There need to be different policing techniques. Otherwise we’re going to just keep having these things happen.”