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Police receive minimal crime reports from Cedar Fest riot

April 8, 2008

The number of reported crimes related to last weekend’s Cedar Fest riot has been minimal, police said Tuesday.

East Lansing police Lt. Kevin Daley said police haven’t received any other reports of crimes resulting from Cedar Fest other than those they recorded. Daley said he doesn’t expect many crime reports from the weekend in the future.

“If most people haven’t reported to us by now, we’re not going to see it,” he said.

Samer Mansour, an electrical engineering senior and resident manager of Cedarbrook Apartments, said the biggest crimes he saw during Cedar Fest were small fires and fights that were quickly stopped.

“I saw a couple people … trying to knock down a tree, but they were unsuccessful,” Mansour said. “Overall, there wasn’t a lot.”

Daley said there was not an increase in reported sexual assaults after Cedar Fest, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t happen.

“We had women on top of people’s shoulders and the minute they lift the top, they’re groped by about 25 guys, but none of them have come through to say, ‘I was sexually assaulted,’” he said.

Police haven’t yet compiled an estimate of the total cost of damages resulting from Cedar Fest. Daley said the numbers might take time because police are first concentrating on prosecuting offenders.

Daley said he expects damage costs to be much smaller than past disturbances in East Lansing because the riot was contained at the Cedar Village area.

“By being centered there and being stopped prior to reaching (downtown) ... it didn’t reach the height of damage that it has in the past,” he said.

In past incidents, when rioters spilled into the downtown, there have been large fires, destroyed landscaping and shattered windows in many businesses and private properties.

General management junior Nick Visconti said Cedar Fest didn’t cause much more damage beyond litter from bottles, cans and cups.

“I really didn’t see much,” Visconti said. “I left before the supposed street signs (were uprooted) and the tear gas. That’s the only damage I’ve heard of besides probably the litter.”

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