"Six arrested, several hurt in melee at UMass Amherst" by Todd Feathers | Globe Correspondent, March 15, 2013
Several University of Massachusetts Amherst students were hospitalized and six were arrested, two for allegedly assaulting police officers, during a disturbance involving over 2,000 students at an off-campus apartment complex last weekend.
The episode began around noon Saturday with a large, outdoor party celebrating what is known as the “Blarney Blowout,” the Saturday before St. Patrick’s Day, on a grassy space near the Town House Apartment Complex on Meadow Street.
Within hours, emergency responders were quickly swamped with complaints and calls for paramedics to transport inebriated students to hospitals, Police Chief Scott Livingstone said.
Saturday’s riot “stretched public safety officers to the brink,” said Stephanie O’Keeffe, chairwoman of the town’s Board of Selectmen.
Livingston said a force of 20 officers from the Amherst Police Department, State Police, and university police force responded to the apartment complex in full riot gear at 4:45 p.m. When they arrived, officers saw students setting fires, breaking house and car windows, and throwing bottles at each other and at police, he said.
Amherst police were caught understaffed by the riot, he added.
Before police suited up to disperse the crowd, two hoax calls — one reporting a man with a gun and the other notifying authorities of a stabbing — sent officers to locations in southern Amherst.
Police later determined the hoax calls were made from numbers inside the Town House Apartment Complex.
“It’s an outrageous, horrible thing to be dealing with right now, but it’s also just a symptom of a larger problem,” O’Keeffe said, pointing to a lack of expeditiousness by UMass in informing the public about such events. “The community needs to have the university counter the perception of permissiveness about this kind of thing.”
In a letter published Thursday in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, John Kennedy, UMass Amherst’s vice chancellor for university relations, said the school was “appalled by the behavior of students” at the party....
Related: A Tuft Night at the Westin Copley
Take it to the bars downstreet, kids.
“While we acknowledge the right of business owners to make a living, an event that encourages binge drinking at 11 a.m. should have no place in our community,” Kennedy wrote in his letter....
Yeah, take it from one who knows, that doesn't end up well.
Among UMass Amherst’s students, the “Blarney Blowout” has increasingly become a “drunken street festival,” said O’Keeffe.
This year, local bars sold admission tickets, which vastly improved the situation downtown, she said, but the street party seemed to move to another location in response.
It's the whole problem with tyranny all over, isn't it? You try to stop something, it moves somewhere else.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating drunken kids rioting in neighborhoods, not at all, for many reasons. In fact, I'm a strict prohibitionist who wants to BAN BOOZE! If it's good enough for the less harmful demon weed (can't even get medical marijuana without state hoops) then it's best for booze. Sorry to spoil the party.
“The most disturbing thing is that the level of violence and hostility toward police is increasing,” she said....
Yes, that is disturbing to government officials. What is not as disturbing -- if it is at all -- is the reverse, the growing epidemic of police violence and hostility towards the population. We saw it with Occupy, we saw it in Boston, we see it all over the country where an average of eight people a day are killed by cops.
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And you know what goes with booze, ladies:
"4 Pittsfield men charged with rape of UMass student; Attack allegedly happened at Amherst campus dorm" by Alyssa Creamer and Travis Andersen | Globe Correspondent | Globe Staff, October 22, 2012
AMHERST — Officials at the University of Massachusetts Amherst were reaching out to stunned students on Monday and assuring them of their safety after an 18-year-old woman reported being gang-raped in her dormitory room.
Four teenagers — Emmanuel Bile, 18; Justin King, 18; Adam Liccardi, 18; and Caleb Womack, 17, all of Pittsfield — pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of carrying out the attack during the early morning hours of Oct. 13.
“It was horrifying when I read that today,” sophomore Gwendolyn Crosby said Monday night, echoing the sentiments of others on campus.
Earlier in the day, UMass Amherst chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy wrote in an e-mail to students that campus police began an immediate investigation when the alleged attack was reported and determined that there was no security threat to the general campus.
The woman and the four defendants know one another, Subbaswamy wrote, but none of the suspects are UMass students. Officials would not identify the dormitory where the alleged sexual assault took place.....
At the arraignment of the four suspects Monday in Eastern Hampshire District Court in Belchertown, Assistant Northwestern District Attorney Jennifer Suhl provided a graphic account of the alleged assaults, drawing a shocked reaction from the judge.
Judge Mary Hurley set bail at $10,000 cash for each of the defendants and said, “Never in my time on the bench have I heard such an egregious recounting of facts.’’
According to Suhl, the men texted the woman before the encounter, saying they wanted to visit her dorm, and she replied that she did not want them to come. They went to Amherst, anyway, Suhl said, and were signed into the dormitory by a stranger. The woman was not in her room when the suspects entered the building, but they let themselves into her room when they discovered the door unlocked, according to Suhl. When the woman returned, she agreed to let the men stay and to socialize with them, Suhl said.
The men at one point shut off the lights and stripped the woman and then repeatedly raped her, according to Suhl. After the assaults, three of the men left the room; Liccardi stayed and raped the woman again, according to Suhl.
Defense attorneys fired back in court, saying the woman was inebriated and tried to extort money from their clients. Citing police reports, the lawyers said the woman told investigators that she drank eight or nine shots of liquor, a couple of beers, and smoked marijuana before the encounter.
Should have just stuck with the weed.
Also see: Smoking Marijuana Causes ‘Complete Remission’ of Crohn’s Disease, No Side Effects, New Study Shows
But, hey, remember it is the Globe and this government that care $o much about your $afety and health.
According to both Suhl and the defense lawyers, the woman texted Bile the following day and accused the four of raping her. David Pixley, a lawyer for Bile, said the woman told his client in a text message that if they each paid her $500 cash, she would not report what they had done to police.
Uh-oh. She woke up with Bile in her tummy cuz she didn't get paid.
Bile reportedly sent a text back, apologizing for his actions and those of his friends. Suhl said the woman was not blackmailing anyone, but was using a “safety tactic” to protect herself by misleading her attackers into believing she was willing to keep silent, as she sought help....
Ohhhhhhh.
I'm sorry, but that state sophistry really stinks, although I guess sometimes it pays to lie for the greater good, even if it destroys all credibility for all women who holler rape.
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More:
Massachusetts Justice: Wrongful Convictions
Massachusetts Justice: Holding Back
MSM Xmas Gifts: To American Convicts
Medical Examiner Didn't Get Good Look at Rapist DNA in New York City
Now I'm not saying rapes are not happening, but who knows what to believe anymore? So many cases where jailed rapists who protested their innocence were absolved and the authorities still don't admit they are wrong, they never do, and I have a good idea as to why: law$uit.
Related:
Also see:
In move up, UMass football sees empty seats, high costs
Some would say football contributes to domestic violence and rape.
UMass Boston gerontology program suspended
UMass lecturer says school is punishing her
Rapes of a different sort.
UMass delivers record financial aid
On way to ‘banner year,’ UMass looks to innovate fund-raising options
Cuts are coming, 'eh?
"A taxing time for many at UMass" by Adrian Walker | Globe Columnist, March 11, 2013
Alexis Marvel is, in many ways, a typical UMass Boston student: hard-working, busy, and saddled with ever-increasing debt, largely due to mounting tuition and fees.
In just two years, the 23-year-old political science major has racked up $20,000 in student debt. So she will be following the state government’s budget debate on UMass with intense personal interest.
“For a lot of students like myself coming from a working-class background — working poor, really — this increase in fees is a real burden,” she said. “My parents don’t financially support me. Taxes and increases in revenue are difficult for a lot of legislators to talk about, but the increases in fees are a tax of sorts on students.”
I'm marveling at the smart kid.
The plight of University of Massachusetts students and their families is drawing attention on Beacon Hill. One proposal that could help limit fee and tuition hikes comes from Governor Deval Patrick, who has proposed increasing state spending for the system.
Via a tax increase.
Related:
Business leaders express support for Patrick’s education plan
Proposed tax increases a concern for Mass. businesses
Well, which is it? Are they for it or against it?
Also see: Highway Robbery in Massachusetts
Talk about getting raped.
Meanwhile, Robert Caret, UMass’s president, has proposed freezing tuition and fees for two years, if the state will provide 50 percent of the cost of educating students — which he refers to as a “50/50 plan.”
Caret argues that the public share of public education in Massachusetts has been plummeting for decades. In the 1970s, taxpayers provided more than 70 percent of the system’s funding; now that number stands at 43 percent. While the state’s commitment to UMass has declined, tuition and fees have risen in recent years by about 5 percent a year.
“We have become one of those discretionary pieces they think they can cut, because we can always raise fees,” Caret said. “But we get criticized when we raise fees. Our goal is to get to a reasonable number so we don’t have to keep raising tuition and fees.”
See: Caret's Carrot
I hope you kid's $ee where some of those fees are going.
Increases of $1,000 a year may not sound enormous, but students certainly feel it. Marvel — who is one of five student representatives on the UMass board of trustees — described her struggle to get a college education.
She grew up in Taunton and spent two years after high school traveling the world with a performing arts group. By the time she moved back home, she wanted to go to college and study government. Her mother manages a small business in Taunton; her father is out of the picture. If she wants to go to college, she has to figure out how to pay for it.
So Marvel works part time at a Unitarian Universalist Church in Lexington. She also works a steady stream of temporary jobs, which she finds easier to arrange around classes. During breaks, she waits tables. She has an internship at the State House, but it doesn’t pay. Neither does the student trustee post, though it consumes a lot of hours that might be spent working a paying job.
Like Caret, Marvel is struck that a state known for higher education is so stingy when it comes to its own colleges and universities. “Even though we’re known as as state with high-quality higher education, it’s not really a reflection of our public higher education,” she said. “It’s really critical that we start to address this problem.”
I'm not, not anymore. I believed the Massachusetts myth I was raised with for years, but no longer.
She said Caret’s plan addresses pressure being felt throughout the system. “The reality is that it’s the will of the faculty and the students and the parents,” she said. “It’s really necessary if we’re going to have a high-quality system. Kids are graduating thousands of dollars in debt.”
That's the plan.
See: College Students Need Credit Default Swaps
How about a bailout instead? See who is making money off you kids?
The budget debate is about to commence at the State House, and as usual higher education seems overshadowed by other issues — among them, Patrick’s proposed tax increases, and addressing the funding nightmare of the MBTA.
But higher education deserves urgent action too.
“We will never get back to a 70 percent subsidy,” Caret said. “But our entire democracy is based on the idea of an educated citizenry. And that means we have to fund education.”
That is why we are in such trouble.
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Related: The ideals behind UMass Amherst’s stained concrete
No Safe Schools in Massachusetts
If it looks like a flagship pos and is a flagship pos, well, it must be a....
Time to pick up your check:
"UMass tops list of state’s high earners" by Matt Carroll | Globe Staff, February 16, 2013
The University of Massachusetts dominated the list of state employees who made more than $100,000 last year, with 49 of the top 50 spots held by doctors, administrators, and coaches.
At $784,468, the top 2012 salary belonged to Michael F. Collins, who holds dual roles in the university, as chancellor of the medical school and senior vice president for health sciences at the university. He was also the state’s highest paid employee in 2011.
For the second year in a row, the number two salary went to Terence R. Flotte, the medical school’s dean, who was paid $712,041.
Typically, UMass employees, particularly those at the medical school, are heavily represented in the top-earner brackets.
Overall, nearly 7,700 state employees across a variety of departments earned $100,000 or more, up from about 6,900 employees in 2011. In total, the state employs about 100,000 full- and part-time workers.
Governor Deval Patrick, who earns $139,832, could not even crack the top 1,500. He was clustered in with State Police officers, professors, and a dentist.
Sad when you see money junkies are also at the top of our ejerkashenil $y$tem.
Of those making more than $100,000, about 2,500 were UMass employees. The State Police had nearly 1,600 earning six figures. The list does not include quasi-public agencies such as the Massachusetts Port Authority.
Where I'm sure we are being looted.
Two UMass coaches were also high on the list: basketball coach Derek Kellogg, at $628,624, and football coach Charles Molnar, at $401,250....
Look, I don't want to be picking on them; however, I'm outraged that corporations and banks pour their paper wealth into $elf-$erving diversions like sports instead of social services or some other good.
Also see: You Screwed By UMass
You kids $ure are, as the basketball coach gets a $100,000 raise every year. Maybe he is worth it, I don't know, but that's beside the point when kids are being asked to pony up more, go into more debt, enslave yourself and your future to banks and government that makes money off you(?).
UMass officials were quick to point out that the bulk of the money paid to medical school employees comes from other than taxpayer revenue, typically a combination of consulting fees, contract services, and research licensing. The medical school’s revenue last year was about $900 million.
No school employees who earn $120,000 or more “get one penny” from state taxpayers, said Ed Keohane, a spokesman for UMass Medical. Those staff members are included on the list, however, because they work for the state.
“We are able to ensure that taxpayers are not footing the bill,” Keohane said....
Yeah, well, that makes me feel better that the medical school is $omehow on the take.
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NEXT DAY UPDATE: UMass chiefs are far down salary list
Funding rise urged by UMass students
Time to step off:
"UMass student survives 80-foot fall
A 20-year-old University of Massachusetts Amherst student hiking with fraternity brothers on Saturday afternoon survived an 80-foot fall from a cliff in Mount Sugarloaf State Reservation, Deerfield police said. “The victim went off trail, slipped and fell approximately 80 feet, and slid some more,” said Deerfield Police Sergeant Harry Ruddock. The student was taken by medical helicopter to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester with injuries that were not life threatening, said Ruddock. The rescue mission, carried out by multiple police and fire departments from surrounding communities and Greenfield Fire Department’s High Angle rescue unit, took just under two hours."
Alcohol involved?
