Cops Blast Tear Gas & Pepper Spray to Break Up Riot-Like Colorado College Party

Image source: The Coloradoan

Colorado police used tear gas and pepper spray to break up hundreds of students after a party near the Colorado State University campus in Fort Collins turned riot-like Saturday night.

Image source: The Coloradoan

Students began throwing bottles at officers and climbing on cars and street poles after cops first tried to make everyone go home, the Associated Press reported. Neighbors had complained around 9 p.m. after the partiers spilled into the street.

"We were going through telling people party's over, time to go, and we got a lot of cooperation until...we shut the music off. That completely turned the crowd," Fort Collins police Capt. Jerry Schiager told The Coloradoan. "They started chanting 'F the police' and basically pushed the cops back down the street."

Schiager told the newspaper the officers pulled back to put on riot gear, then re-entered the neighborhood and rolled in exploding rubber balls, fired pepper balls and set off pepper spray and tear gas canisters. The 300-person crowd was dispersed by 10:30 p.m.

"It was a little scary, the aggressive nature of that core group," Schiager said.

Three partiers were treated at the hospital for minor injuries, a police spokeswoman told the AP. No officers were injured.

According to The Coloradoan, the party had been advertised all week on Facebook. Raucous attendees chanted the Colorado State University fight song as well as anti-university slogans.

“My eyes are burning,” student Karley Schafer told the newspaper as she left the party. “It really hurts.”