An estimated 4,000 revelers took to the streets in Halifax’s south end on Saturday night to celebrate the homecoming of Dalhousie University. Halifax Regional Police said in a statement Sunday that officers who tried to disperse the crowd were attacked and other emergency responders were not allowed to put out fires or evacuate the injured for safety reasons. Rick Ezekiel, Dalhousie’s vice president of student affairs, said in an interview Monday that he was “disappointed and disappointed” at how things escalated Saturday. “I think we’ve seen a lot of harmful, damaging, destructive behavior toward first responders, toward the community and natural spaces,” Ezekiel said. Rick Ezekiel is the vice president of student affairs at Dalhousie University. (CBC) In memos to the student body, Ezekiel and Dalhousie president Deep Saini accused the Canadian Party Life Instagram account of its “reckless ambition and influence” in promoting a “toxic party lifestyle.” The account has been used to advertise street parties in the past, including those involving Dalhousie students, and posted clips of street parties submitted by followers. After Saturday’s party, CPL’s account featured a clip of students setting off fireworks into a crowd while police tried to intervene, among other posts. But in an emailed statement, an unnamed spokesperson for Canadian Party Life said they believe Dalhousie “handled the situation poorly.” “CPL understands that Dalhousie wanted to warn its students, however, we do not believe that sending a mass email warning [students] about our page was the way to address the issue at hand,” the statement said. “The email that was sent got us over 1000 new followers. Social media is very influential in today’s society, however, we would appreciate it if Dalhousie would contact us directly and ask us to host a limited event at the school or in the surrounding community.”
The parties are getting “more intense,” residents say
A local resident says that compared to previous homecoming parties, this year’s was bigger and much more intense. Dr. Caitlin Lees, who spoke to the CBC last month about her concerns surrounding the party, lives on Larch Street and told Maritime Noon’s Bob Murphy that the weekend was marked by chaos. “It was quite loud and unruly, many students spilled onto residents’ properties, including mine,” Lees said. “Some people [were] urinating and defecating along my property line, including the side of my house. I saw someone using cocaine and then also a lot of fighting.” Police attended the street party that took place in the fall of 2021. (Jeorge Sadi/CBC) In a statement issued on Sunday, Halifax Regional Police said officers who tried to disperse the crowd were “met with a high level of resistance” and were assaulted. Some required medical treatment for their injuries. “A bonfire was set in the street using branches that fell from the storm in an attempt to prevent the police from dispersing the crowd,” the statement said. “Officers had to take a number of injured people out of the area, including a man who suffered a stab wound.” Const. John MacLeod said during a news conference Monday that the investigation into the stabbing is ongoing and added that police were surprised by the response Saturday. “It wasn’t what we expected,” MacLeod said. “In previous years we have cooperated with the students, but this year it was extremely disturbing to encounter not only resistance but also violent behavior.” There’s no exact number yet, but MacLeod said dozens of citations were issued Saturday and several arrests were made. He added that resources had to be called in from across the city to respond to the rowdy event. “There were thousands of people there and, certainly, there weren’t thousands of police.”
There are no easy solutions to stop future parties
Aparna Mohan, president of the Dalhousie Student Union, told CBC’s Maritime Noon on Monday some of what she saw on the streets just north of Dalhousie’s campus was “disgusting.” “It goes without saying that what I saw and what we all saw from students, especially the extreme actions that were described, are unacceptable,” Mohan said. He was placed in a harm reduction ward during the day on Saturday, he said, and went to the party after receiving a text from a fellow student who said they felt “unsafe” because police had started using pepper spray on people in the crowd. Aparna Mohan is the president of the Dalhousie Students’ Union. (Jane Sponagle/CBC) As the size of sanctioned street parties has grown, stakeholders have tried to think of possible tools to combat the popularity of these events. Ezekiel noted that the issue of these large street parties is not unique to Dalhousie and has plagued post-secondary institutions across the country. “If any of us had a simple solution, we would have done it,” Ezekiel said. Mohan suggested that Dalhousie consider holding a campus-sanctioned homecoming party. He said there had been “quiet support” from university staff, but there was also reluctance to hold such an event and carry any of its potential consequences. “There is no top-down alignment in terms of the institution as a whole and their willingness to put their name on something that could potentially have off-campus offshoots that would then be associated with Dalhousie,” he said. Ezekiel said the school is working to work with the student body to understand who planned the event and how Dalhousie can work to discourage future parties. “We are interested in continuing to develop the vibrancy of our campus community,” he said. “We will continue this framework of cooperation [by] inviting all our partners to the table and trying to have a coordinated approach to using the various tools at our disposal to try to solve this.”
