COLUMBUS (WCMH) — Calls to 911 were made to Columbus Police dispatchers for more than four hours before officers broke up a large, destructive block party on Chittenden Avenue, NBC4 Investigates has learned.
NBC4 Investigates requested 911 recordings from CPD stemming from the party known as Chitt Fest, which began the evening of April 17.
The earliest time-stamped recording was from 10:13 p.m. The last time stamp was 2:17 a.m.
The calls placed during this four-hour, four-minute window tell the story of escalating fear and pandemonium.
“The entire street is chaos,” one caller told a dispatcher at 10:38 p.m.
“It’s just getting out of hand. It’s getting crazy,” another caller said six minutes later.
“I feel really threatened and really nervous,” said a young woman at 10:52 p.m., at an address that was the source of multiple 911 calls during the party about a large amount of people gathering on the balcony.
“They’re flipping cars. It’s turning into a straight-out riot,” another caller said, using profanity to urge the dispatcher to, “Get this under control.”
Several people called multiple times for help. Dispatchers told callers officers were “in the area monitoring.” In some calls with later time stamps, dispatchers told callers that officers were on the way.
Closer to midnight, callers began to wonder why they hadn’t seen any police officers.
“Peoples’ cars are getting flipped out and nobody’s doing anything about it. I’m just wondering why,” one caller said, mentioning that he had called earlier.
“I have not seen a police officer within the last two hours,” said another.
At 2:02 a.m., one dispatcher told a caller, “There’s not a whole lot we’re able to do about it.”
“I felt helpless,” said an Ohio State University student who lives on Chittenden Avenue. “It didn’t feel good to call authority and (for) them tell you there’s nothing they could do about it, as people were flipping cars. It’s ridiculous.”
The student asked to not be identified, in fear of disciplinary action from the university, despite saying they and their roommates stayed in their home.
“We were scared for ourselves and our own safety,” the student said.
CPD Patrol Commander Dennis Jeffrey said officers moved in around 2:40 a.m. to disperse the crowd, more than four hours and 20 minutes after the first call.
Asked why it took so long to engage the crowd, Jeffrey said, “Mainly because we have new rules of engagement for large gatherings.”
According to Jeffrey, the new rules of engagement were put in place after protests in Columbus last summer, which led to use of force investigations into several officers.
CPD provided NBC4 Investigates with the policy revisions regarding use of force in crowd control.
The changes state that chemical irritants, including tear gas, cannot be used to disperse crowds. Officers are also no longer allowed to use chemical spray to break up a group of people, unless that group is behaving aggressively towards officers or other people.
The revised CPD policy states explicitly that, “Failure to leave a street or to move, by itself, shall not justify the use of chemical spray against a non-aggressive, non-violent crowd.”
Officers are permitted, however, to use chemical irritants to prevent crowds from blocking a controlled-access highway, according to the new policy.
“If that didn’t happen, we’d go in and try to remove those people from the street in the past,” Jeffrey said.
According to Jeffrey and dispatchers’ accounts, plain-clothes officers were dispatched into the crowd to monitor the situation and report back to nearby officers. A CPD helicopter also monitored and gave warnings from above.
Jeffrey said property damage was not reason enough to disperse the crowd, under the new rules.
He said officers finally moved in to respond to a report of an assault after 2:00 a.m., but they were quickly overwhelmed by the rowdy crowd and could not find the victim. That’s when, according to Jeffrey, officers took action to break up the party.
By then, the crowd had died down.
“I don’t think we could have done it successfully when it was at its peak,” Jeffrey said.
Jeffrey said no officers were injured and no force was used.
“I think if we would have gone in and used force, we’d be having a different conversation today,” Jeffrey said. “It would have been, ‘You went in and used too much force.’”
CPD last week released images of 18 persons of interest connected to Chitt Fest. None have been arrested, but Jeffrey said investigators have matched names to 10 of the faces. He expects as many as six to be charged in the coming days.
OSU confirms it is pursuing sanctions against students involved in Chitt Fest for Code of Student Conduct violations. A spokesman for the university could not confirm the number of students facing possible disciplinary action, but said actions could range from a formal reprimand to dismissal from OSU.