Police break up Southern Society fight at Cottage

The conflict escalated until 22 police officers from five organizations arrived and twice sprayed the crowd with pepper spray, Davall added.

Several University students were involved in the altercation, according to two students at the event who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

At around 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Public Safety officers received several calls from party attendees who said a fight had broken out on the dance floor during the middle of John Denver’s “Thank God I’m A Country Boy.”

It is still unclear what started the skirmish, though attendees said that at one point during the song, one person was heard shouting, “Applicants from the South are less-deserving candidates!” and another yelled, “Southerners have the propensity to move in packs and carry weapons!”

“Damn straight we move in packs and carry weapons,” said Cottage president Ben Bologna ’10, a Louisiana native who is in charge of slaughtering the hog for the Southern Society’s annual spring Pig Pickin’ in the Dod Hall courtyard during Houseparties weekend.

According to the group’s website, the Southern Society is “open to all members of the undergraduate community that express an interest. Members may then be classified as ‘Southerners’ or ‘Aspiring Southerners’ based on their home geography, but all Members have separate but equal privileges.”

At the time of the incident, around 200 people were present, and about 10 to 20 of them were “pushing, shoving and punching each other,” Davall added.

The crowd dispersed quickly, though when 22 police officers patrolling the area arrived on the scene and sprayed pepper spray over the crowd. The police sprayed the crowd twice before the combatants stopped fighting, Davall said.

He added that an investigation is ongoing.

The incident bears many similarities to an altercation at a Dec. 5 dance hosted by the Caribbean Connection at the Fields Center, when the police also resorted to using pepper spray to break up a brawl. At the time, several students questioned whether such severe tactics would have been used in “different circumstances.”

“I think we can safely say now that we happily resort to using pepper spray even when breaking up fights between entitled, rich white people,” Borough Police Chief David Dudeck said. “Let it be known, the BoPo is an equal-opportunity pepper spray dispenser.”

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