Home » News » New video footage re-opens investigation of Fanshawe area party

New video footage re-opens investigation of Fanshawe area party

January 13, 2010
By Elana Abramovitch

A video released on a social networking site has reopened the investigation of the Oct. 31, 2009 Thurman Circle street party, which occurred near the Fanshawe College campus in London.

During the assembly, 22 people were arrested, including 11 students.

According to Amy Phillipo, media relations officer for the London Police Service, they are now looking for witnesses to identify any other individuals involved in the assembly based on the new video’s footage.

When police originally arrived at Thurman Circle because of reports of a disturbance they were pelted with beer cans and other debris from the crowd.

After calling for backup, police began taping the riot from a distance, which helped them in issuing the arrests.

The newly discovered video contains closer footage. It was recently released to the media by London Police and by Crime Stoppers in hopes of identifying any other individuals involved.

“We have a committee that works proactively on issues involving students,” Emily Marcoccia, director of marketing and corporate communications at Fanshawe, said. “Three of our members were on site immediately, including one police officer. I personally got a phone call in the middle of the night regarding the event.”

The committee at Fanshawe reviewed the 11 student arrests individually to determine whether further action should be taken. The College recently strengthened its student code of conduct, which now denotes if a student’s actions off-campus are found to negatively affect the health and safety of those on campus, the code of conduct can be applied.

“I don’t think any school can try to govern students’ behaviour off-campus,” Jabari Cooper, president of the Fanshawe Students Union, said.

“One of the cases was determined significant enough that the student was suspended immediately,” Marcoccia explained. “I believe the charge for that student was assault of a police officer. If the student had the propensity to harm a police officer then they might have the propensity to harm someone on campus and we can not allow that here.”

“Fanshawe dealt with the situation as an institution. There are a lot of differences between how Western and Fanshawe work, one difference being that Fanshawe has an off-campus code of conduct where as Western does not,” Dan Moulton, vice-president university affairs with the University Students’ Council, said.

“It is unfortunate that this happened and that students celebrating Halloween had to resort to this type of activity. We need to work as a community at Western and Fanshawe to better educate students about being responsible members of the London community,” Moulton added.

Cooper seconded this statement.

“There has to be a stronger relationship between the College, students and police so that there is mutual respect,” he said.

Marcoccia reflected on the unfortunate situation.

“We are a big college and we have an incredible track record with our students. The actions of a few bad apples are really dragging down the reputation of everyone,” she said. “Currently, we have 140 charity projects on the go involving our students and yet this issue is being brought to the forefront.”

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