Iowa State’s dry Veishea policy is the main culprit of these riots. By forcing a large number of students into a few local bars and house parties, what do they expect to happen? If Veishea wasn’t dry, then there would have been dozens of smaller parties all over campus, in dorms and out in Frederiksen Court. These places have community advisers and resident assistants who can monitor parties and act accordingly. But by limiting freedoms of its students’ and not trusting students judgements, they force us into overcrowded parties.

Then when one of these parties gets broken up, the police start to treat us like cattle, pushing us, instead of just letting us disperse naturally, or just want to catch our breath a bit, but what do we get instead — pepper sprayed and tear gassed, and they wonder why a riot broke out. We are very lucky nobody got seriously hurt, but let us not kid ourselves. There are many parties responsible for this instance, it’s very easy to just blame a few drunken students, but that doesn’t get us anywhere. We need to address the real causes of this, including dry Veishea and police overuse of force.

Just talk to some veterans of the Ames Police Department. You will hear stories of officers “going off” and being too aggressive in the past “riots.” We students are human too; if we get assaulted for little or no reason, we are going to react, whether or not the persons assaulting us are police or not, it’s just human nature for self defense.

Daniel Matlick

Chemistry

Senior