Mirror - Vol. 25, No. 03 - October 07, 1999

              The Mirror
FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY
Volume 25, Number 3 The Image of Fairfield Thursday, October 7, 1999
44Grape" tiarns sour
Violent turn of events lead to arrest of football captain and three Fairfield students
By John O'Dea
COMMENTARY EDITOR
Football co-captain Eric Wise, '00,
was arrested early Sunday morning
following an altercation with Fairfield
Police in front of the Sea Grape Cafe,
according to a report in the Connecti-cut
Post.
According to witnesses, Wise was
removed from the Sea Grape by sev-eral
employees at about 1:15 AM. Af-ter
he was outside, Officer Keith
Broderick attempted to subdue him
and Wise resisted. He was taken down
by Broderick after a brief scuffle and
was arrested by Officer Kyle Keenan.
"During the officers' attempt to ar-rest
him, Wise was encouraging the
large crowd that gathered to assist him
in his attempts to resist," Det. Sgt.
Gary MacNamara told the Connecti-cut
Post.
Wise was charged with assaulting
an officer, inciting a crowd to riot,
breach of peace, and interfering with
an officer. He is scheduled to appear
in court on Oct. 12.
This Week...
Campus Life
Breast Cancer awareness:
how to protect yourself
See page 8
Commentary
Problems at beach
ignite concerns
See page 11
Arts and Entertainment
Find out what's on top
in the world of entertainment
See page 16
Sports
Cross country places high
in Fairfield invitational
See page 19
The Seagrape Cafe, the site of
According to the Post, Wise was
brought to St. Vincent's Medical Cen-ter
where he was treated and released.
Broderick, who suffered a contusion to
his knee and a strained left leg, refused
medical attention.
Wise said that he has filed a corn-
Photo: Nick Ouimet
Saturday night's incident
plaint against the Fairfield police de-partment.
He refused to comment
further about the incident.
Police also arrested four others af-ter
the incident for failing to disperse,
according to the Post. According to
witnesses, none of the others were in-volved
with the scuffle and all were
on the periphery. Three of those ar-rested,
Peter Johnson, Brian Williams,
and Michael Mahoney, are Fairfield
University students. All were charged
with disorderly conduct according to
the Post.
One witness was critical of the way
police handled the crowd that formed
to watch the situation unfold. "I think
they handled the situation with Eric
and others who tried to intervene cor-rectly,"
said Jen Salfi, '00, "but with
others who were just standing around,
the cops were way out of line."
Witnesses say that police used pep-per
spray on Wise, and then sprayed
into the crowd that gathered around
the incident in order to disperse them.
Doug Whiting, VP of public rela-tions,
refused to speculate on any dis-ciplinary
action the school will take
against Wise. "He will be entering the
University judicial process," said
Whiting. "We will sort through the tes-timony
and opinions of those in-volved."
As for Wise's status with the foot-ball
team, Whiting said that no deci-sion
has yet been made.
A neighborhood on watch
By Megan Loiaconi
STAFF WRITER
&
Brian Huben
NEWS EDITOR
The safety of campus residence has
become a concern to many students af-ter
residents in three townhouses awoke
this weekend to find that their homes
had been burglarized.
"They went to every back porch in
the three block for about ten seconds
per house," said a student who asked
to remain anonymous. "When they got
to end of the 'five block', I saw a ciga-rette
light go up the stairs. Two min-utes
later I saw the cigarette light go
out, and the males walked away with a
chair from the house."
The source had been sleeping in her
townhouse and turned over to face the
window facing toward the townhouse
quad. She heard footsteps on her back
porch and then heard two males run
away.
The men in question were described
as "college age" and were seen wear-ing
white hats, red and white
sweatshirts and had keys dangling from
the pockets of their jeans, a witness
reported.
Three townhouses were broken
"There were three of us sleeping
upstairs in the house," said Amy Liss,
'00, a townhouse resident whose
house was broken into. "Nobody
knew until the next morning when we
noticed our things missing."
"The fact that we have to lock our
windows at night is disturbing," said
a junior townhouse resident that also
asked to remain anonymous. "To be
scared on our own campus shouldn't
happen."
Frank Ficko, Associate Director of
Security, suggested that students take
simple precautions to protect them-selves
and their homes. "My theory
Photo: Nick Ouimet
into this weekend
is that when you leave your home, you
lock the door. Do the same thing on
campus," he said.
Another student reported waking
up in his townhouse in the nine block
at 5:45 am. He walked down the stairs
and into the kitchen and then noticed
that his back door was wide open. An-other
house in the nine block was also
broken into.
"I'm really scared now," said ajun-ior
male. "I have to push the futon
against the back door at night
for piece of mind."
Security went around, the next
Continued on p.5