Details continue to emerge about the party last Saturday in Alumnae Hall that led to the arrest of four men in attendance. According to the official Providence Police Department report obtained Wednesday by The Herald, an individual threatened to return to a Brown party with a handgun. The University and Brown police are conducting separate reviews of event management in response to the incident.
"At least one subject involved in a disturbance had made comments consistent with getting a handgun and returning to a party on Brown University property," according to the report.
During the "Scandalous" party, which was hosted by the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, an individual also "tried to grab at a Brown officer's gun in his holster," PPD Chief Dean Esserman told The Herald on Tuesday. Brown Department of Public Safety officers also used pepper spray to break up a disturbance at the event before they summoned PPD for backup.
According to the report, Providence police "observed several hundred subjects" leaving Alumnae Hall when they responded to the DPS request at approximately 1 a.m. Sunday. More than two dozen attendees were "swearing and yelling obscenities" at DPS, who notified PPD that they already had "at least" two people in custody by the time PPD arrived at the scene, according to the report.
These suspects, Kenny Jean of Bridgewater, Mass. and John Germainmartinez of Boston, were arrested by PPD at the DPS headquarters and taken to the PPD central station, according to the report. Two other suspects, Jide Disu and Mario Monte, both of Randolph, Mass., were asked to leave the scene of the party by PPD, but, after multiple requests, were placed in custody and taken to the central station on charges of "obstruction of public ways."
The four suspects are not Brown students.
The incident has raised questions regarding party management and security at the University, prompting internal reviews by both Brown Police and University officials.
Providence police are leaving the review to the University.
"Everything went through Brown," said Lt. John Ryan, commander of PPD District 9, which includes Brown. He said DPS and PPD plan to review the security plans in place at Brown to prevent similar situations from occurring in the future. Though the review is still pending, Ryan said there were "too many people for that space" in Alumnae Hall.
Andrew Annaldo, the chairman of the Providence Board of Licenses, told The Herald he sent a letter to Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services Margaret Klawunn Wednesday morning, in which he asked about safety measures for a party set to be held at the Brown Art House on Friday.
"I wanted to know if it was going to be safe," he said, though he said he did not plan to categorically deny approval for future Brown event applications. After meeting with Klawunn, Ryan, DPS officers and students involved in organizing Friday's party, Annaldo said he was satisfied with the measures Brown planned to implement to prevent similar incidents.
"They're beefing up security on the party that's going to happen on Nov. 20," he said, adding that he was informed at the meeting that Brown had "more people involved in crowd control."
Annaldo said he plans to check on Brown's progress regarding event management in the next few weeks and will consider all future events on a case-by-case basis.
"I'm just protecting the public interest," he said. "We have a great working relationship with Brown."
Klawunn said the meeting with Annaldo was successful in convincing the licensing board that Brown was taking Saturday's incident seriously and adopting more stringent management and security procedures.
"There's no blanket opposition" from the board, she said. "They found it helpful that we were so responsive to the event that happened this weekend."
