By Bobby Zeliger
News Editor

The third Senior Cocktails of the school year ended early Friday morning in chaos as hundreds of students tried to retrieve their jackets from a tiny coat room on the second floor of the
Harbor Park restaurant in Middletown. According to witnesses, students were trapped and trampled for as long as an hour in a massive throng of bodies as several fought to restore
order before police and public safety officers arrived.

In a letter sent to several administrators, the Senior Class Officers, who organize all Senior Cocktail activities, said that until the end of the evening the event was a success. 

"There were two unrelated incidents of misconduct that resulted in expulsion from the event," the letter stated. "Aside from these incidents, the night went smoothly."

This was the first year that Senior Cocktails was held off campus. According to Jim Sullivan, senior class president, approximately 725 students were present, a few more than the
approximated 650 present at the previous Cocktail event. 

Harbor Park, on route 9, has two floors and a raised balcony above the second floor. On the bottom floor there is a dance floor and a bar. Upstairs, there is another open space along with
a stage and a second bar. The coatroom is by the stairs on the second floor.

At approximately 12:50 am, the bar closed and the music ended, in accordance with Connecticut’s law requiring bars to close by 1:00 am. According to witnesses, at this time, a large
crowd of students made their way toward the coatroom to retrieve their belongings, swamping the second floor. A rod in the coatroom, holding the coats collapsed from the weight,
increasing the disorganization. 

People began shoving each other, and several shouted to the crowd to restore order as many students were trampled. Several people used cell phones to dial 911 from amidst the crowd.

"Nobody could get out," said Jessica Chin ’01, who was trampled in the crowd. "I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breath… people were watching from the balcony [above] and they were
laughing."

"People were screaming and pushing," said Aaron Frank ’01, who was trapped near the coatroom. "At one point a jacket was thrown on me and I couldn’t breathe… I just started
pushing people out of the way and ran downstairs… I couldn’t take it. I had to get out of there."

According to the letter written by the senior class officers, "At this time, class officers and bouncers were distributed upstairs, downstairs, and outside of the building. We encouraged
students to go out the door and escort them onto the buses so that they might get home safely. It did take some time to communicate this message to everyone and, as a result, some of
the bouncers began to get physical with the students–pushing them, grabbing them, etc."

Frank said the staff of Harbor Park were rude and unnecessarily aggressive, especially one, extremely large bouncer.

"The bouncer was screaming at everybody to ‘get the fuck out of here,’" Frank said. "Two of my friends were physically dragged out [by that bouncer]."

Andrew Calica ’01, president of the Wesleyan Student Assembly, was trapped in the coatroom for over an hour. He said he tried without success to restore order. 

"I was very concerned people were going to get trampled, including me," Calica said. "It seemed to me the primary problem was nobody was working the coat room."

Calica said it was difficult to tell who was in charge. 

Flo Anito ’01 who was also trapped trying to retrieve her coat, said she was sent outside before getting her jacket.

"I was stuck in the stairwell," Anito said. "There were too many people pushing. But I knew they were kicking people out downstairs. So I climbed the railing to the dance floor…
Eventually I pushed my way downstairs… All of a sudden there were a bunch of cops there with batons and dogs."

The Middletown and Portland police as well as state troopers and the Fire Marshall also arrived on the scene, accompanied by police dogs. The chaos spread outside Harbor Park at
approximately 1:45 am, where students continued to search for coats. It is currently unclear whether it was Harbor Park staffers, police officers or both who began throwing the coats
outside and on top of police cars. 

"Everybody was really antsy and angry," Anito said. "Everybody was yelling at everyone. One policeman got on top of his car and started throwing coats off the car. Everybody threw
coats back at him."

Frank, who was also outside looking for his coat said he asked several police officers for information about the situation.

"I went up to this [police officer] and tapped him on the shoulder [from the side]," Frank said. "He grabbed my arm and twisted it with both his hands and said: ‘If you touch me again I’ll
break your arm."

Frank went to the emergency room later that evening, with what he believed to be a sprained finger from the incident with the officer. The next day he went to the police station and found the officer who had injured him. 

"What was going on there was a real disaster," the officer said according to Frank. Frank then decided not to file charges after the officer apologized for hurting him.

Several witnesses claimed they saw police dogs jump on and scratch students. Frank said he saw a police dog pulled out of a car and riled up by.