Streaking team disbanded

The Princeton University Varsity Streaking Team was disbanded Thursday after University officials threatened members with disciplinary action, according to a team co-founder.

The action was in response to an April 8 streak down Prospect Avenue. Team co-captains Scott Welfel '06 and Danny Brome '05 received emails early the next week from Investigator Charles Peters of Public Safety, Welfel said. Peters was assigned to the investigation by the Princeton Borough police, he added.

"We suspected that he was calling us in because our names had been in many newspapers as the founders of the team, and he assumed we would have either been involved or would have known who was involved," Welfel said.

Peters told him that there would be no punishment for the streakers if the team promised to never streak again, Welfel said.

"Investigator Peters told us the Borough was pretty pissed and had hired a detective to investigate the incident. He wanted to be able to give the Borough assurance that we would promise to discontinue our streaking, which we were compelled to do," Welfel said.

Welfel said he was told the streak was reported to the police by foreign dignitaries who were in Robertson Hall at the time, a fact the Borough police disputed.

But Borough Police Lt. Dennis McManimon said, "There seems to have been some kind of function that day with school officials but not with foreign dignitaries ... I don't know why people said that."

Though University officials declined to comment on the April 8 incident, their policy on streaking is separate from the Borough and is not high on their list of concerns, according to Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students Hilary Herbold.

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"What I can say is that regardless of dignitaries, we are not going to change the disciplinary response on who was there to witness [the event]," Herbold said. "Were specific students identified and were [it] to be acknowledged that they had been in state of undress, then we would place them on probation."

The University will not go out of its way to search for the streakers if no reports are made to Public Safety and no students are identified, she said.

"We basically rely on Public Safety to apprehend the students. If they don't, we won't actively pursue it," Herbold said.

Though the Princeton team will not run at the University again, Welfel said he still hopes to compete at Hamilton. The Hamilton College Varsity Streaking Team steaked across Princeton on Monday.

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"We're going to attempt to rally and get enough people to go up there, but we can't get people here to take a half-hour study break," Welfel said. "People are so serious about their work here and have so many commitments."

Witnesses to the Varsity Streaking Team's last run said it was a success.

"I think that overall it was a good meet. They could claim it as a victory," said Megan Van Voorhis '06, who saw the April 8 meet. "If they had to go out with a bang, that was pretty much it."