Huntington News

Issue date: 9/25/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Zach Virgilio

Twelve Northeastern students were arrested on Mission Hill in the first two weekends of September, said Officer Gerry Scott, a community officer in Mission Hill for the Boston Police Department. More students were arrested last weekend, but Scott said he had not tallied the data yet.

The names of the students who had been arrested could not be release, said Boston Police spokesperson James Kenneally, due to privacy laws in Massachusetts.

The charges stem from parties broken up by Boston Police and include drug and alcohol violations and keeping a disorderly house, Scott said.

Interim university spokesperson Jim Chiavelli declined to comment on the number of students arrested or the jump in number from the previous year.

The 12 students have been arraigned in Roxbury District Court, Scott said. If the students are found guilty when they go to trial, they will likely have to complete six months to a year of probation, he said.

"You pretty much have to do what the court does," Scott said.

Chiavelli said the university promotes positive actions among off-campus students, using methods including requiring mandatory freshman attendance to the "Welcome to the Neighborhood" event held at the start of each year.

"In Boston's neighborhoods, Northeastern students are both citizens and ambassadors," Chiavelli said in an e-mail to The News. "A great many of our students do wonderful things in the community. A few act inappropriately, and both the Boston police and our Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution (OSCCR) hold them accountable, after due process."

City Councilor Michael Ross, whose district includes Mission Hill, did not return a call for comment yesterday.

On campus, alcohol violations appear to be lower than in previous years, said Jim Ferrier, associate director of the Northeastern University Division of Public Safety (NUPD).

Based on a review of the Huntington News Crime Log data, NUPD officers confiscated at least 162 cans of beer, four beer balls, 13 bottles of liquor and 10 bottles of wine from the area surrounding campus since the start of September. The department plans to dispose of the alcohol, Ferrier said, which is currently being stored at NUPD headquarters in Columbus Place.

Ferrier said there were "less [alcohol violations] than the previous year or the year before. I hope its because of a new culture of change [in student attitudes]."

Most students charged with alcohol violations were students exchanging recently purchased alcohol, Ferrier said. Students of legal drinking age who provided alcohol to minors will be summonsed to Roxbury District Court and all students involved will be reported OSCCR, Ferrier said.

Ferrier said his analysis of alcohol violations was just his initial impression; official information will be available near the start of October, he said. A significant number of students were taken to the hospital for excessive alcohol consumption, he said.

"This was not a great weekend for a lot of students, who ended up in the hospital or vomited in their friend's bed," he said.

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