Witnessing history
First, let me say I am NOT a sox fan by any means - I've been a Cubs fan for as long as I can remember. Only reason I wanted the Sox to win was so all this would happen on our normally late night and not Thursday night, which is supposed to be an early night.
So last night, I didn't get home from work til about 3am. All the paper was done by 11pm, cept for the wrap around world series cover billy had been working on and page 2, where we were putting the world series story. At about 1130 the white sox had won the world series and we began work on our coverage for it, which was basically me just supervising billy and helping him out. around midnight we got a few reports of a big mob forming on Annie Glidden Rd. so we sent out photographers. Then a little after 1230 one of our photographers calls in and informs us that the mob is now moving down Lucinda, headed towards us and that we all need to get out there and see this. So a bunch of us threw on our coats, some grabbed pen and paper and we took off to find the crowd.
By the time we caught up with it, they were over by the Student Center across the street, heading thru the MLK Commons and it looked like the next destination was the east lagoon. We met up with another one of our editors who had already gone home and she informed us the mob was originally over by the Stadium and they tried to break in, we assumed to get the goalposts. We also heard some people were crowdsurfing! At this point most of us went back, however since i had nothing really to do I tagged along with the managing editor and we followed the crowd west on Lincoln Hwy, where they were basically walking down the entire street - 4-6 cop vehicles were following behind, keeping traffic from hitting anyone. The crowd then went thru the McDonalds drive thru, beating on the cars and high-fiving the employees at the windows. Once the mob reached the intersection of Glidden and Lincoln they all rushed the center and started cheering and jumping. The crowd then proceeded to head north on Glidden, where several road signs got torn down. By the time the crowd reached the Lucinda intersection again a few bottles were being broken, and the cops had Glidden blocked off the rest of the way, as well as Lucinda east, so the mob started to head west, back thru the dorms again, where 3 cops blocked the way behind them. At the intersection I counted 8 vehicles! I heard someone say there were at least 2 other mobs, however this one was probably the biggest... the DeKalb Chronicle reports there were approx 850 people out last night.
We headed back to the Star so Marc could write his story. Billy was almost done with the cover and I took care of throwing stories on page 2 and swapping in Marc's story about the mob/riot that happened. Over the police scanner they were talking about possibly using force to break up the mob, as well as getting back-up late night ride vehicles so people could get rides home. Apparently there were about 50 police officers total - from NIU, DeKalb, DeKalb county, as well as state police! One officer said over the scanner, when I guess they had created a barricade, was "This is the city responding - they're gonna try to rush us!"
All in all, it was a crazy night, yet everyone was safe and we met our goal of getting the paper to the printer before anyone died and we would hafta change everything.
Next year is our year, Cubbies.
Marc and J. King's story about the riot
The Chronicle's account of what happened
So last night, I didn't get home from work til about 3am. All the paper was done by 11pm, cept for the wrap around world series cover billy had been working on and page 2, where we were putting the world series story. At about 1130 the white sox had won the world series and we began work on our coverage for it, which was basically me just supervising billy and helping him out. around midnight we got a few reports of a big mob forming on Annie Glidden Rd. so we sent out photographers. Then a little after 1230 one of our photographers calls in and informs us that the mob is now moving down Lucinda, headed towards us and that we all need to get out there and see this. So a bunch of us threw on our coats, some grabbed pen and paper and we took off to find the crowd.
By the time we caught up with it, they were over by the Student Center across the street, heading thru the MLK Commons and it looked like the next destination was the east lagoon. We met up with another one of our editors who had already gone home and she informed us the mob was originally over by the Stadium and they tried to break in, we assumed to get the goalposts. We also heard some people were crowdsurfing! At this point most of us went back, however since i had nothing really to do I tagged along with the managing editor and we followed the crowd west on Lincoln Hwy, where they were basically walking down the entire street - 4-6 cop vehicles were following behind, keeping traffic from hitting anyone. The crowd then went thru the McDonalds drive thru, beating on the cars and high-fiving the employees at the windows. Once the mob reached the intersection of Glidden and Lincoln they all rushed the center and started cheering and jumping. The crowd then proceeded to head north on Glidden, where several road signs got torn down. By the time the crowd reached the Lucinda intersection again a few bottles were being broken, and the cops had Glidden blocked off the rest of the way, as well as Lucinda east, so the mob started to head west, back thru the dorms again, where 3 cops blocked the way behind them. At the intersection I counted 8 vehicles! I heard someone say there were at least 2 other mobs, however this one was probably the biggest... the DeKalb Chronicle reports there were approx 850 people out last night.
We headed back to the Star so Marc could write his story. Billy was almost done with the cover and I took care of throwing stories on page 2 and swapping in Marc's story about the mob/riot that happened. Over the police scanner they were talking about possibly using force to break up the mob, as well as getting back-up late night ride vehicles so people could get rides home. Apparently there were about 50 police officers total - from NIU, DeKalb, DeKalb county, as well as state police! One officer said over the scanner, when I guess they had created a barricade, was "This is the city responding - they're gonna try to rush us!"
All in all, it was a crazy night, yet everyone was safe and we met our goal of getting the paper to the printer before anyone died and we would hafta change everything.
Next year is our year, Cubbies.
Marc and J. King's story about the riot
The Chronicle's account of what happened