It must be so, because last night they spent a ton of man power busting a Notre Dame student house party in South Bend and arresting 8 Notre Dame Football Players.
A party in South Bend was busted by police overnight, sending 43 people to the county jail.
It happened at a home on Washington Street. South Bend police were called in to respond to the initial complaints and the Indiana State Excise Police were called to the scene over underage drinking.
The excise police tell NewsCenter 16 that 43 people were arrested, and one was sent to the hospital for lacerations in his hand. It's not known at this time if all of the arrests were just for underage drinking.
Thank God. Now I never, ever have to worry that I've parked my car in a lousy area so I can go into a restaurant after a game. And I'll never have to wonder if I might just get stabbed for my wallet while walking 1 block off the main drag in downtown South Bend. Hurrah! The South Bend area businesses must be thrilled. Good news, guys! I can start spending my money in your establishments rather than wanting to scramble back to a major metropolitan area!
Particular kudos need to go out to the part-time law enforcement professionals - who surely must spend most of their time in neurosurgery or fine tuning the large hadron collider - who arrested Nate Montana. He of the Montana bloodline. Yes, THAT Montana, in case you hadn't heard. One can only imagine if these law enforcement professionals spent the rest of the night drinking themselves ill because they caught the famous law breaker, or because, a few hours later, after all the self-congratulatory adulation** they began to fathom that the number of lawyers who could, should the Montanas wish, be brought down upon the South Bend area probably reaches numbers far greater than they can actually count.***
Look, we get that there are "problems" with underage drinking across campuses in our country. But there are also problems like crack, gang violence, auto theft, and rape that, well, from our experience reading the South Bend Tribune, tend to happen in South Bend. A lot. Enough that it's getting to the point that we think it would be a perfectly reasonable argument on anyone's part, should they wish to make it, that going to South Bend to attend college isn't really the safest choice in the world. So, should such a person want to make that argument, they could probably use that point to sway all-American student athletes or, even, say, exceptionally bright, tuition-paying students to attend other institutions of higher learning rather than attend ND, fear for one's life on more than one occasion per semester, and then get harassed by the very same police force that should be solving these much greater problems (and failing).****
And don't even get me started about the Excise Police. Those jokers are running the biggest scam on the tax-paying public in the history of rackets. Consuming sweet, sweet tax revenue (and the associated financial perks for their employees - mmmmm, state pensions!) to fight a battle that doesn't exist. If ever there were a location to hold a Tea Party convention, it would be right in front of the ISEP headquarters. Maybe I should follow the ISEP's lead and create a law enforcement agency in Indiana that doesn't actually prevent anything anyone is actually all that worried about. "The Indiana State Clown Prevention Agency," I'll call it, and I'll spend a bunch of tax money and time arresting ISEP employees.
Updated: I just found evidence on the ISEP's website that they're entirely "self funded." They've been able to offset their budget via the revenue they "generate." They "generate revenue" by running these stings and fining college kids, essentially. So essentially they "generate revenue" via "raids." Like buccaneers. Or pirates. Probably more like pirates.
** That's a euphemism.
*** And that number is apparently 43.
**** Just sayin'.
By ShamRockNRoll July 17, 2010 - 2:11 pm
This is absolutely ridiculous. I’ve seen cops act in similarly stupid ways before I came to ND (coming from a boring suburban city it made sense that cops had nothing better to do), but in the brief time I spent there I was absolutely shocked how a city with so many serious issues with public safety could waste its resources harassing kids… kids who attend a university which if it didn’t exist, neither would South Bend’s economy.
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By TXIrish2 July 17, 2010 - 2:33 pm
Talk about an abuse of discretion. I remember thinking it was a pain that the cops showed up, broke up the party, and made everyone go home. Arresting 43 people? Absurd.
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By SDI July 17, 2010 - 5:03 pm
Nice work MQ. Excellent post.
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By theIrishLion10 July 18, 2010 - 1:01 am
9 players arrested under BK now…. hope this isn’t going to continue. not saying this isnt ridiculous (it is ridiculous to arrest college kids for drinking), just saying its a bad start
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By borromini July 18, 2010 - 9:27 am
Out of those nine…only one should be counted. The Excise Police using fines to keep their department viable is a conflict that will only breed mistrust.
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By Mike July 18, 2010 - 1:19 pm
I don’t want to be one of those “it was better in the old days” guys, but when I was at ND in the late 60s and early 70s there didn’t seem to be the same enthusiasm for busting kids for drinking that exists today. There have been a lot of changes over the years, but this overzealous attention to drinking is not one of the positive ones. I don’t support consuming dangerous quantities of alcohol. I don’t support driving while intoxicated. On the other hand, I don’t think I was permanently damaged by drinking beer when I was 19 or 20.
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By tricerapops July 19, 2010 - 11:32 pm
all borne out of a litigious world we now live in, unfortunately. the university is now so risk averse, they have to turn the other way when stuff like this goes down – all for the better the lawyers will tell you (no offense to lawyers).
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By OderName July 18, 2010 - 2:40 pm
Uh, it was better in the old days, without a doubt – and I just graduated ten years ago. Back then the police were concerned with safety and security. If we were having a party (and we had lots, some pretty crazy on St. Pete’s St.), the police rolled by and made sure nobody was too out of hand. If not, they actually would chat with us and were very friendly and helpful. I have only heard stories about the new reign of the excise police, but it sounds about as grand as the end of SYR’s and most other things that were fun about ND.
That said, I think we should avoid the knee-jerk idiocy of “I don’t have any facts but the police clearly acted stupidly”. From other reports, there were over a dozen people fighting, people were jumping out of second story windows, and the same address has already been hit with other charges this year, including narcotics charges.
I think I’ll wait for more facts to form an opinion, but the one thing for certain is that this is not a situation to celebrate for Irish fans.
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By domer_mq July 19, 2010 - 8:26 am
I think you miss the point if you read my post and saw, “the police acted stupidly.” In fact, the police were sort of just lap-dogs in this anyway. This was a sting set up by the ISEP, who Shanghai’d 15 SBPD to coral kids as they tried to leave the scene. It’s not “stupid.” It’s “smart, and lazy.” It’s just far, far easier to generate revenue by fining upper-middle class college kids than it is to actually shut down drug corners, solve rapes, or patrol dangerous streets.
I’m sure the 15 SBPD called off of their regular beats to handle this crisis were thrilled with the reprieve from actually doing anything dangerous.
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By OderName July 19, 2010 - 5:24 pm
Nah, it was more of a response to one or more of the comments. Again I’m not saying I even disagree, just don’t know the facts and I tend to give those in uniform the benefit of the doubt.
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By OderName July 19, 2010 - 5:27 pm
I accidentally hit submit, but to add to what I just posted – as more facts come out like those you just quoted, it’s looking more and more like this is just the police bullying the students – and their parents’ checkbooks. I thought the University was moving forward with improving gameday experiences last year – now it’s time to try the same with the University’s relationships with the SBPD.
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By The Biscuit July 19, 2010 - 7:03 pm
The rumors about a ‘battering ram’ used to bust in the door are especially scary.
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By domer_mq July 19, 2010 - 8:32 am
Further, I find it quite creepy that a fair number of people would hear the news or read this post and say, “Well, I’ll not defend a bunch of kids drinking.” I get that it’s illegal to drink under 21. That’s sort of a “derp” fact. And an inability to see beyond that, and recognize there’s a state agency designated to essentially do nothing but arrest kids for drinking is a frightening thing to me in an Orwellian sense. This state agency has a charter that allows them to exist, effectively, simply for the sake of existing. “You’re revenue neutral? Well, geez, we’ve got to let you keep going! I don’t care what you’re doing!” The ISEP must fine people who can pay fines in order to continue existing. And why would it want to exist? Because the people employed by the ISEP know they’ve got a hell of a sweet gravy train going.
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By tjak July 18, 2010 - 5:42 pm
Odername, I hear you, but if 18 year olds can fight Iraqis and the Taliban, let alone liberate Europe in 45′ then they should be deemed mature enough to drink. Please do not give me any nonsense about how these young MEN may have been acting immaturely, as I am sure all of us have been to parties where the over 30 set was not really showing class for their age. If this is just about underage drinking then the police just used an Atom bomb to kill an ant.
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By theMose July 18, 2010 - 6:09 pm
Underage students should not be drinking. Did I miss something? Are ND students and/or college students in general given a free pass on underage drinking? The students (expect the one too drunk to know better) all knew it was illegal. Don’t the crime if you can’t do the time. Drunk students drive, text, and get in fights just like sober ones so what is the problem?
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By domer.mq July 18, 2010 - 8:23 pm
Yeah, and they make such sweet, easy targets with an ability to pay revenue generation, uh, I mean, fines.
Pull the stick out of your ass. It’s so deep in there it’s affected your brain’s ability to see the big picture, you quaint, Puritanical teetotaler.
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By Brad July 19, 2010 - 7:03 am
I would just like to understand the mentality of these excise cops. Do they relish their work? Is there some haggard, older excise cop somewhere who doesn’t play by the rules, and goes against the Chief’s wishes just because those 18 year old punks drinking beer just make him Goddamn sick?
That said, this was a stupid place for these kids to be. I live in SB now, and have frequent contact with police, and from what I understand this was far too big and loud of a party for these kids to be at without expecting some police to show up some time.
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By Brad July 19, 2010 - 7:05 am
Also, note that these kids just so happened to be out partying and living it up when Kelly was out of town on vacation.
I would assume they will live to regret that.
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By OderName July 19, 2010 - 8:37 am
tjak – I’m not arguing the issue of underage drinking, about whether or not it should be legal. My point is that I don’t think we should jump to conclusions about the police being out of line in this particular situation without all of the facts; there are certainly some evidence that may indicate the police overstepped (as stories indicate they have in multiple other occasions), but there is also evidence that shows they had reason to come down hard in this situation.
Another point here is that, regardless of whether it should or should not be legal for 18-20 year-olds to drink, a good teammate would not put himself in a position to get in this type of trouble. To me that’s a sign of a lack of leadership on the team – which BK is hopefully working hard on remedying.
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By domer_mq July 19, 2010 - 8:48 am
I guarantee you the best teams ND has ever had on the field featured kids who were drinking underage. The notion that this is a “leadership issue” is laughable.
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By OderName July 19, 2010 - 5:54 pm
Others may be, but I’m not saying that kids should never drink underage. I did – starting when I was 15 – and feel it’s part of growing up. My point on leadership is that there needs to be a culture on any team (football, basketball, hockey or even my former teammates from the golf team) to keep yourself out of trouble when that trouble hurts the whole team. I think these kids should let loose, party hard, but do so in a way that’s at least much less likely to land them in Reslife or jail.
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By The Biscuit July 21, 2010 - 3:33 pm
Dorm Rooms are their friends.
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By tjak July 19, 2010 - 10:30 am
I am with Domer on the leadership issue. Please do not tell me Florida football players did not drink on their way to two national championships; oh that’s right they were not drinking, they were just committing felonies.
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By Trey July 19, 2010 - 10:41 am
Domer, on your point that the ISEP is loving their gig, when do most of these parties that they’re gonna crack down on happen? Probably start around 8-9 and then go till around 1-2. So what the hell do these guys do all day until then? Sit around the station and play xbox? You’re right, theyre prob loving this. Easy ass work(entrapment is a cinch), big paycheck, cozy work envir.
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By The Biscuit July 19, 2010 - 10:51 am
all this aside, the kids (especially the frosh and sophomores) need to learn that dorm parties should be their best friend while underage. no, not as ‘cool’, but also almost no chance of getting in trouble. drink your face off in your 10X10 with 50 of your closest friends in 100 degree heat. it’s great.
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By Erik '04 July 19, 2010 - 12:56 pm
Not defending the ISEP, but the article I read about this indicated that South Bend police responded to a call about a fight outside the party, and then discovered that the 15 of them that were available couldn’t contain the 100 roudy partiers… so then they called in the ISEP. That might have been covering up the fact that it was a sting, but have you seen reports or are you jumping to conclusions?
Also, calling someone a “quaint, Puritanical teetotaler” for disagreeing with your position is not a great way to become the go-to ND Football Blog if you’re trying to replace BGS. Just saying.
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By domer_mq July 19, 2010 - 1:32 pm
Think over the logic of that. They were “responding to a fight.” With 15 beat cops. All at once. Right away. And with nobody actually charged in any matter over a fight. And then they… called in an army of ISEP men who, what, hang out on stand-by in the area in case a gang of 100 college students need to be arrested for drinking?
Besides, according to this…
http://www.southbendtribune.com/article/20100718/News01/7180303/1130
It happened like this…
“Excise Police officers arrived at 1:53 a.m., according to a news release, and 15 or more South Bend police officers left their patrol beats from across the city to assist and catch people who were fleeing, police said”
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By Erik '04 July 21, 2010 - 3:09 pm
It does all sound a bit shady, and either way the ISEP sure don’t handle their business in a reasonable and professional way.
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By domer_mq July 19, 2010 - 1:34 pm
Further, while we very much appreciate any mention of the opportunity to “replace” BGS, we’re HLS. We’ve always been HLS, and we’ll continue to be HLS. Some will love us, some will hate us, but that’s who we will be. Some people have lost all ability to process and analyze information beyond the first set of details. We’re just trying to help that one guy out.
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By The Biscuit July 19, 2010 - 1:40 pm
Name-calling and mockery is one of our primary ways of communicating here. We always, always do all this stuff with a smile, or at least a smirk, on our face. And we can’t do it with our wives like we did as undergrads, so we do it here. That’s just us.
We know some people don’t get that, and that’s okay. While we’d love to be the ‘go-to’ for ND Fans, we aren’t going to change and put on some fake affectation to please the masses. We’ll keep being who we are, and hope it works out. Besides, if someone can’t stand up to DMQ’s logic and name-calling, they don’t deserve to win an argument.
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By OderName July 19, 2010 - 5:48 pm
For what it’s worth I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the posts here since I found you post-BGS, and if there’s a silver lining to this it’s that there are over 30 discussion posts in July. I’m really looking forward to hanging out here during the season.
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By DeepTeaKup July 19, 2010 - 2:12 pm
I find it simply appalling the type of unruly, lawless behavior that has taken root in the ND program since Brian Kelly has taken over the prgram. Multiple arrests, drinking underage? Bring back Weis.
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By The Biscuit July 19, 2010 - 2:19 pm
Was waiting for it DTK! Thanks for coming through.
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By Fenian Fox July 19, 2010 - 3:19 pm
Just for history sake, I was wondering if anyone can remember when the tide turned on under age drinking crackdowns. I was at ND from 90-94, and things seemed to change in that time. At first there were a few busts at Bridgets, then some house parties at Turtle Creek etc, but nothing too crazy. The first big event I remember was St. Pat’s day in 94 at Lafayette Square – there were A LOT of police, including dogs patrolling around the perimeter to catch people jumping the fence. They went house to house and pretty much breathalyzed everyone. I think it was pretty much unprecedented up to that point. Just wondering what others remember.
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By The Biscuit July 19, 2010 - 6:00 pm
In the late 90′s there were some shifts, but from what I can tell the big changes happened in the early 00′s. Changes on campus, and off, started happening quickly. Cancellation of SYR’s, then the Dillon Pep Rally (in its original form), ban of any hard liquor in dorms, then all the cops-on-campus-tailgating stuff, then the off-campus raid stuff. It’s all always happened to a degree, but my guess is that 01-03 was the turning point. Burish took over as Provost in 2005, and I would guess that would be an inflection point too.
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By OderName July 19, 2010 - 6:03 pm
I was there from fall ’95 to spring ’01. SYR’s, dorm parties, etc were still kosher. I was at Bridget’s the night it got busted but left early. There were a couple other bar busts that we all knew were a matter of time (IConn, Boat Club), but the days of shutting down Finnegan’s didn’t come until a couple years after I left. Off-Campus parties were huge and rarely busted. We held the Margaritaville parties of fall ’99 and spring ’00 on St. Pete’s street, both with over 700 cups sold, and the guys across the street had crazy 40′s at 4 parties on Fridays, where the cops and firemen would actually cruise by to watch people do the two-story beer bong – without checking ID’s. Things have certainly changed since then.
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By Erik '04 July 21, 2010 - 3:08 pm
I was there 2000-2004 during a lot of the changes to campus culture related to alcohol. Students were burning copies of Du Lac on the steps of the Main Building when hard alcohol was banned. I don’t remember too many off-campus house parties being broken up, but places like Boat Club and Finnegans were always getting busted.
From the ISEP website, they are part of the Alcohol and Tobacco commission, which underwent a name change from the Indiana Alcoholic Beverage Commission in… 2001. I couldn’t find info about when the ISEP were created, but perhaps more stringent enforcement came along with the name change in 2001. It would seem to fit the timeline.
Also, at least one student died after attending an off-campus party while I was there. Perhaps the University decided to react in a way that could prevent future issues and began inviting ISEP to be more active?
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By rocket89 July 19, 2010 - 3:50 pm
I’m with MQ on this one.
First of all, all the reports about the fighting and people running away muddles the real problem: the existence of the excise police. The fact that they are out there doing what they are doing is one of the saddest/most wrong/ridiculous things in our entire country. I went to school way up in northern New York where there were two bars for 2,000 kids and we thought it was brutal to have to deal with the local police and campus security. If you were an underclassmen who got caught with a fake ID, you’d be scared a little bit, but nothing bad would happen to you. If you were caught by campus security with booze/pot as a freshman, half the time you’d get yelled at, and the other half you’d have to go to a 3 hour alcohol meeting. And we thought that was bad!
And the whole idea that this “arrest” of football players displays a lack of leadership is a joke. Sure Kelly probably isn’t happy with the negative publicity, but I really can’t see him being too upset with this. If anyone reads the history of past Irish teams, you’ll discover that a ton of football players loved to drink and mixed it up off campus. Especially when it was an all boys school, there are plenty of stories of guys risking a ton of punishment to go drink at a bar or sneak to see a girl. Didn’t seem to be much of a problem when we were kicking the snot out of teams back then.
But alas, if there was only an excise police back then. What would Paul Hornung have done?
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By DeepTeaKup July 19, 2010 - 4:39 pm
Thanks Bicuit, trying to get ready for the upcoming season. Hope to continually improve through the summer and be in game shape by Sept 4.
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By theIrishLion10 July 19, 2010 - 6:18 pm
i just really hope Tai-ler Jones gets off or doesn’t catch any punishment too harsh. He’s going to be a big time player.
i also think that it is somewhat hypocritical that this site will make fun of other program’s problems, but then cries foul when our players are arrested. they drank under age, and that is illegal. college kids will drink, its not a big deal. but maybe they should find a smarter way to go about these things
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By tjak July 19, 2010 - 6:52 pm
Actually IrishLion, the folks at this website and the regulars who write in do not get too wound up about students drinking at other schools. It is the felony stuff (gun possession, assault, theft etc) that gets us hating on schools like Florida.
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By The Biscuit July 19, 2010 - 6:57 pm
yep. had ND guys been drinking and driving, we’d not be happy. at Michigan (sucks), you get a DUI, then you captain the game 2 weeks later.
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By The Biscuit July 19, 2010 - 6:56 pm
IrishLion, we make fun of other programs’ lack of consequences for off-field problems. at UF, this wouldn’t even get a blink and no one would get in trouble at all. At ND, it’s national news and they will come down hard on the kids – probably too hard. So its not hypocritical at all.
And this post is less about whether drinking underage is illegal (it is) or that it is/not that big a deal (it’s not), and more about the way it happened, and the way the Excise Police operate (insanely).
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By theIrishLion10 July 20, 2010 - 3:06 am
“somewhat hypocritical” was me trying to show there are just shade’s and thoughts. my aim is not to call any writers on this site hypocrites because i enjoy the opinions, and i know thats what i will get viewing this site (and the world needs more opinion, people get too offended). i was merely just trying to view things from all angles.
i also agree about the drinking not being a big deal, because its really not. i have never heard of cops arresting an entire party of college kids just for alcohol. its really amazing to think about.
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