Five years after 10,000 revelers torched the streets of East Lansing and tainted MSU's name, the scars still are visible as a reminder of the college town's darkest night.

March 27, 1999, signaled the beginning of a new era for MSU as the men's basketball team returned to the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 20 years. That achievement, however, will be forever overshadowed by the mistakes of that night.

For East Lansing police Chief Louis Muhn, the March 27-28, 1999, riot gave the city and MSU a "black mark" and motivation to never let it happen again.

"It is a reminder of how things can turn sour in a moment's notice," Muhn said, reflecting on the fifth anniversary of the riot that led to 132 arrests and $250,000 in damage.

As the riot spiraled out of control, revelers set 61 fires, broke 24 windows along Grand River Avenue and burned eight vehicles. Police responded by unleashing more than 300 canisters of tear gas and making numerous arrests.

Immediately, national headlines focused on the city as MSU's reputation was quickly tarnished.

In the wake of the destruction, East Lansing and MSU embarked on a mission to change the perception of the city and make it clear that unruly behavior wouldn't be tolerated.

The city quickly fixed its damaged storefronts and prosecuted the accused, vowing to clean up the mess that had been created. But the emotional recovery of the already fragile city was just beginning - and still continues five years later.

"I still remember the smell of tear gas, certain people that I talked to and what I did," said East Lansing Deputy Police Chief Tom Wibert, a captain during the riot. "For the people coming in, it is like ancient history. It is almost like a legend."

To the people who lived it and dealt with the aftermath, the riot was very real.

Many of the 71 MSU students charged with riot-related crimes never would return to the university. Many of those involved say they've moved on, but the effects of their involvement in the 1999 riot still linger today.

MSU President M. Peter McPherson said students quickly made a statement after the riot. "To me, as much as anything, it was the students saying, 'Look, this isn't us. This isn't Michigan State and we don't want it to be.'"

When the smoke cleared, East Lansing Mayor Mark Meadows and city officials began looking for answers that would help prevent a reoccurrence.

"I thought it was the worst night of my life," Meadows said. "I felt like somehow, because I was an elected official, that somehow I was responsible for what happened."

Five years later, Meadows can draw some positive conclusions. He says communication between students and permanent residents has improved.

But there are still lapses. Last year, about 30 revelers were arrested during the March 28-30, 2003, disturbances that caused $40,000 in damage to the campus and city.

The most recent incident, Muhn said, is confirmation that the city must continue to work to rid itself of the riot plague.

"It is obvious that we can't just do some initiatives and sit back on your laurels and say, 'Look what we've done,'" said Muhn, who was a captain with Wibert during the 1999 riot. "We have to continue to work as a community to take the initiative to try to prevent these from happening in the future."

Sending a clear message

In the days following the 1999 riots, city and county officials sent a clear message to students: Unruly behavior wouldn't be tolerated in East Lansing.

The prosecution aggressively tried 132 people after the riot, earning convictions against 113. Of those, 55 were sentenced for felonies and 58 were sentenced on misdemeanor charges.

Many rioters served jail sentences and paid steep fines long ago. But the embarrassment and the lasting effects from that night of mayhem remain today.

East Lansing 54-B District Court Judge Richard Ball was responsible for hearing many of the cases stemming from the 1999 riot.

For Ball, issuing the appropriate sentence was an important element in deterring future riots.

"There is a necessity to punish sternly and in a way that will make others who would become involved in the incidents aware that there will be harsh punishments - jail," Ball said.

Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III said many of those charged in 1999 "were stunned that they were being held accountable."

The 1999 revelers were hardly the first to wreak havoc on the streets of East Lansing. The city and campus have a history of civil disturbances that dates back to the early 1900s - and some of the trouble has centered in Cedar Village, a student apartment complex that borders campus.

During a September 1997 melee, about 400 partygoers started a bonfire in the middle of Gunson Street.

In 1998, a student protest of an administrative ban of alcohol on Munn field erupted into a riot when thousands of students faced off with police. The chaos spilled into Cedar Village and downtown East Lansing, marking an escalation in tension.

"Law enforcement just said, 'That is it - no more,'" Dunnings said. "We were serious about it and we are still serious about it and we'll continue to be serious about it."

The 1999 riot sparked changes in the law that would be used to prosecute the 2003 revelers.

Lawmakers voted to allow students to be banned for up to two years from state-funded universities if they were convicted of a riot-related offense. The Legislature also cemented the ability of judges to force rioters to repay the city for a portion of the damage.

Rioters often were required to pay thousands of dollars for the damage in addition to spending time in jail. Convicted revelers reimbursed police, businesses, municipalities and insurance companies a total of $325,818 after the riot.

"It was good for them to be held accountable and to have to work themselves to pay the restitution," Dunnings said. "Maybe they'll be less likely to have such a cavalier attitude toward other people's property."

Like the city, MSU quickly looked for ways to modify its policies to prevent future occurrences.

MSU's Board of Trustees approved a policy that allowed the university to punish students who were involved in off-campus riots. The policy gave Lee June, MSU Vice President for Student Affairs and Services, the authority to temporarily suspend any student accused of violating the policy.

After the 1999 riot, about 20 students went through the student judicial process and eight were suspended.

Suspended or not, life would never be the same for many of the MSU students indicted in the days and weeks following the 1999 riot.

The 'black mark'

MSU's academic reputation suffered in the aftermath of the 1999 riot. Some outsiders and employers questioned the merits of MSU, and many students were subjected to the suspicion that they were among the revelers.

As innocent students fought to overcome the wrongdoing of classmates and visitors who smeared the image of their university, suspected rioters began living with the reality of being forever associated with the destruction of that night.

The State News and other local media outlets closely followed the lengthy prosecution of suspected rioters, publishing the names of accused and convicted offenders.

For this report, The State News contacted dozens of MSU students who were convicted for their role in the 1999 riot. But those who could be reached unanimously declined comment, often through their parents.

The mother of one former student said her son believed he already had paid for his crimes. Another parent said her daughter had "moved on" since the riot that changed her life five years earlier.

Many of the MSU students convicted in the 1999 riots have careers and live outside of Michigan. Some are teachers, others are businesspeople.

Even the students who were cleared of their involvement in the riot continue to live in the shadow of the mayhem that ensued five years ago.

On March 27, 1999, Michael Rossi, then a junior, sat on his porch on Cedar Street as the riot raged on. Officers arrested Rossi, claiming he had impeded their ability to manage the growing crowd.

"It wasn't like I was red-handed rioting," said Rossi, now 26, reached at his home in Fraser on Sunday. "The police were frustrated and so was I - so I was made an example."

Facing misdemeanor charges of interfering with officers and public intoxication, Rossi proclaimed his innocence in court and fought the accusations. Prosecutors later dropped the public intoxication charge, and a jury ruled that he hadn't gone outside the law on the night of the riot.

"I'm not going to pretend I was watering plants on my porch, and the next thing I knew, I was arrested," Rossi said. "But everything I was doing was inside the law."

Like many accused revelers, Rossi was placed on house arrest as he awaited his day in court. He submitted to computerized Breathalyzer tests three or four times a day. Once he was cleared, Rossi filed a civil suit against the city, which he said was settled out of court.

Rossi, a 2000 graduate who works as a clinical psychologist, said his final year in East Lansing was tainted by the court proceedings and his struggle to balance his feelings toward the riot with his reflections about his time at MSU.

"For good and bad, it is a part of my history," Rossi said. "It is nothing that has been completely forgotten."

In the months ahead, several convicted revelers are expected to come forward and ask that their involvement in the riot be forgotten - at least in a legal sense. When Judge Ball issued sentences five years ago, he told many of those who were convicted of one misdemeanor offense that their records could be expunged if they stayed away from the law for five years.

Generally, Ball said he would be "thrilled to expunge their records."

He added, "Most would come in embarrassed that they were here five years ago."

Passing on the legend

During the 1999 riot, journalism senior Lindsey Prudhomme was just a high school student hearing stories about the revelry secondhand from her sister, an MSU student.

When the crowd erupted last year after MSU's loss to Texas in the Elite 8 of the men's NCAA Basketball Tournament, Prudhomme found herself in the middle of the mayhem and eventually was put on probation on a disorderly conduct charge for her involvement.

"I knew that it was bad and that it was affecting people who were graduating and trying to find jobs," said Prudhomme, who has been the most outspoken of the students facing riot-related charges. In 1999, one of her high school teachers showed a video of the riot to her class as a warning to future college students.

"I knew what happened in 1999, but I wish I would have known more of what happened to the participants," she said. "Everybody knows what happens when you are in one, but people don't know what happens after."

Because Prudhomme was linked to last year's riots, she's undertaken a mission to tell other students about the consequences of destructive behavior. Last year, she spoke to freshmen during orientation programs and she's written letters to the student body explaining what happened to her in the aftermath of the 2003 riot.

Prudhomme is optimistic that she's influenced at least some students to stay away from potential melees in the future.

The 2003 disturbances - occurring four years after the 1999 riot - unveiled a clear connection between MSU's turnover rate and the cyclical nature of rioting. Most of the students attending MSU during the 2003 disturbances were still in high school during the 1999 riot.

As a result, those students weren't exposed to the hard-learned lessons of the past, police and city officials say.

"You have to continuously re-educate the freshmen when they come in and let them know what happened to the university and the city," Deputy Chief Wibert said.

"It is a huge black eye."

Lessons of destruction

On March 27, 1999, Nancy Schertzing was painting her new home on Kedzie Street when she heard that a riot was brewing two streets away.

Four months earlier, Schertzing and her family had decided to move to East Lansing, but they hadn't occupied their new home yet. The riot forced the family to question the decision to make the college town its home.

"It was really frightening," said Schertzing, now a resident for more than four years. "The riot affected us tremendously even though we didn't live here."

When Schertzing and her husband moved into their home in June 1999, they decided that they would make an effort to meet their neighbors by inviting them over for hot dogs and chili. And the family hasn't regretted the decision to stay.

In 2000, the Schertzings enjoyed the peaceful celebration after MSU won the NCAA men's basketball championship.

After the 1999 riot, East Lansing city officials and the police department launched several initiatives in hope of curtailing future problems. One of the key programs is the Community Relations Coalition, which is designed to open lines of communication between students, permanent residents and officials.

Schertzing, the executive director of the coalition, said the community learned how to "make lemonade out of a really ugly situation."

Kevin Glandon, ASMSU Student Assembly Vice Chairperson for External Affairs, said progress has been made since 1999. ASMSU is MSU's undergraduate student government.

But he said the riot five years ago still is used against students in deciding city policy.

Last year, East Lansing City Council approved an ordinance designed to reduce party noise on the weekends. The policy called for steep fines and jail time for hosts of the most unruly parties.

Students, who felt their ability to socialize was in jeopardy, petitioned against the policy.

"Some of the City Council members have been unwilling to work with students on moving forward," Glandon said. "With the noise issues, we had problems and we continue to have concerns about it."

Overall, Glandon said there have been some strides in repairing the relationship between students and the city.

"A lot of progress has been made, but it hasn't been made by harsh measures and strict ordinances," he said. "It has been made through community organization."

Five years after a riot changed the landscape of East Lansing, officials say they are better prepared to curb problems in the future.

And the 1999 riot and the 2003 disturbances serve as reminders, Muhn said, that the city must continue to address rioting for years to come.

City officials and residents know it will take effort and hard work to prevent future black marks on East Lansing's already fragile image.

With that commitment, Muhn says, the city's troubling "cycle will eventually be broken."

Steve Eder is the State News projects reporter. He can be reached at ederstev@msu.edu