Fort Collins police used tear gas early Saturday morning to break up a riot that erupted north of the Colorado State University campus after more than 1,500 partygoers massed in the streets.
No one was injured during the incident, and property damage was minor, police said. Three people were arrested for rioting and obstructing police officers, and at least a dozen people were cited for noise violations.
Officials said more arrests and citations may be pending. The names of those arrested were not released.
Parties on the 600 block of South Howes Street started flowing into the street around 11:30 p.m. Friday, witnesses said. At first the scene was fairly calm, witnesses said, but then some partygoers starting throwing rocks and bottles, rocking cars and shooting off fireworks. Small fires were set in the street.
Officers repeatedly tried to disperse the crowd before spraying tear gas in the street at 12:15 a.m., police said. The crowd then quickly thinned out.
Nick Zwicker, who lives at 624 S. Howes St., said part of the mob congregated right outside his house.
Zwicker, a student at CSU, said groups of 10 to 50 people kept coming down the street and going into back yards, including his.
"The groups just kept coming in," he said. "We weren't even having a party. We just wanted to have a chill night."
Zwicker and one of his roommates, CSU student Dave Lass, said they spoke with a couple of patrol officers around 11:50 p.m. shortly before the riot started.
They said police told them to call if they needed help. At this point, Lass said, hundreds of people were in the street, but everything was still pretty calm.
Zwicker said he tried to call the police shortly after midnight to clear a large group gathered in the back yard but got a busy signal. Then he and another roommate, William Giordano, saw a patrol car down the street and went to talk to the officers.
Zwicker and Giordano, also a CSU student, were told to clear out any visitors they had in their house, stay inside and lock the doors.
"We asked them to break it up," Giordano said. "We didn't want our property being damaged, or our cars to be damaged. We didn't want to be held responsible if anything happened."
That's when everything started to happen.
Giordano said people pulled branches off trees and tore up shrubs to burn in the street. Street signs were pulled up, and someone tried to take a love seat from his house to burn in the street.
Although they say they cooperated with police and had nothing to do with the riot, Zwicker, Lass, Giordano and their other two roommates all received noise disturbance citations later in the night.
"We just got overflow from the party (next door)," Giordano said.
Sgt. Dave Haywood said the police department tries to have one or two extra patrol cars around campus just to handle parties beginning the weekend before CSU classes start.
"We try to get them before they get out of hand," he said.
Haywood said the police department has had success with breaking up parties before they get too wild, but sometimes they don't make it in time. "It's not for lack of trying," he said.
Classes begin Monday at CSU. Haywood said the extra patrols will continue until late October.
South Howes Street has been the scene of numerous altercations between police and partygoers in recent years. In May, two men were charged with rioting after police broke up a crowd of more than 500 people.
In 1997, major disturbances on two successive Friday nights resulted in five men being charged with felonies ranging from engaging in a riot to assaulting police officers. CSU officials disciplined 21 student, kicking six out of school.