Western University homecoming: 15,000 partiers, 39 taken to hospital

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Paramedics had a busy weekend taking patients from homecoming parties around Western University to hospital, but police kept a lid on rowdy behaviour despite dealing with a significantly larger crowd than last year.

An estimated 15,000 people packed streets around campus on Saturday for homecoming, up from 10,000 the previous year, London police said Thursday.

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Unlike last year when the crowd uprooted trees, damaged property and pelted officers with projectiles after night fell, the roughly 7,000 people who continued to party after dark largely stayed out of trouble, police said.

“Most of the young adults we encountered were co-operative with emergency services and partner agencies,” London police Supt. Ryan Scrivens said in a statement.

One person was charged with assaulting police and two Highway Traffic Act charges were laid. Twenty-four tickets were dished out for liquor offences and 187 fines issued for offences related to nuisance parties, noise complaints and parking infractions, police said.

Paramedics took 39 people to hospital Friday and Saturday from the campus area, up from 31 people last year.

In the most serious incident from the weekend, two people had injuries not considered life-threatening after an assault with a weapon on Saturday around 9:45 p.m. at Richmond and Huron streets, police said. No arrests have been made in the case.

London police have worked closely with officials from Western and the city to crack down on alcohol-fuelled debauchery during homecoming weekend in recent years.

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Western attempted to root out the rowdy behavior in 2016 by moving homecoming weekend to mid-October, when the weather is cooler and students are studying for midterms, but the plan backfired. Students organized their own event, known as fake homecoming, that continued to draw huge crowds to campus-area streets, where they partied on rooftops and prevented ambulances from reaching injured people.

In response, Western returned homecoming weekend to September and police began calling in reinforcements from other southern Ontario forces. A tougher nuisance party bylaw carrying a $1,130 fine for hosts and an agreement between police and the university to hold troublemakers to account also were introduced. 

Crowd-control measures include closing off Broughdale Avenue – a dead-end street that is the epicentre of homecoming parties – to vehicles and erecting barricades in the middle of the road to keep order.

Officers from Windsor, Hamilton and Peterborough were called in to help monitor the weekend bash. The tab to police for the event won’t be known until the spring, when police present a report detailing the costs to the city’s police board.

The total cost to police for last September’s event and to promote public safety leading up to the weekend celebration was $311,100, up from $265,000 the previous year.

dcarruthers@postmedia.com

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