As finals are approaching and students’ minds are being overloaded from long hours in the library, students at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga took a break from it all to celebrate the school year’s end.

Around 11 p.m. Thursday night, hundreds of UTC students broke out their glow sticks and gathered between the campus library and Campus Crossroads where a DJ had set up for a flash rave.

Unfortunately, things got out of hand between the chanting of “Let us in!” and “UTC what!” and the crowd diving off the canopy.  After assessing the situation campus police took action with pepper spray, and students responded by bolting immediately.

From the number of videos making their rounds on YouTube, students are seen shouting and throwing bottles and other objects at the police officers.

Assistant Vice Chancellor of University Relations Chuck Cantrell assures College News that police are not looking to press charges, saying that “we see this very much as almost sort of a misunderstanding.”

Cantrell goes on to say he thinks that they were planning on “blowing off some steam, yelling, dancing, listening to some music, that kind of stuff.”

Campus police unsure of the crowd’s intent as it became bigger and bigger asked them to disperse because as they were disrupting operations in the library. Cantrell explains, “That is when things sort of went south, and the students didn’t respond to the police orders to disperse.” The library was closed for a little over an hour after the crowd’s dispersion for police to regain the site’s orderliness. 

Only five arrests and one misdemeanor citation were issued by Chattanooga City Police.

Many believe students were inspired to orchestrate the “flash rave” after viewing the multiple videos of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruEMaDZWRcs” title="UNC’s similar impromptu rave">UNC’s similar impromptu rave.  The rave was organized via text messages and Facebook informing students to gather at UTC’s Lupton Library at 11 p.m. for a party. 

Throughout the rave locals were twittering updates of the incident such as UTC student Matt Davis on Chattarati’s page tweeting his text message from a friend, “It was amazing… Until I got maced.”

Watch video of the incident here:

Our Take:

It’s unfortunate but the typical case of one or two students ruining the party for a few.  From the videos on You Tube, looks like the rave started with students having an mostly innocent and good time.  It’s not such a bright idea to go crowd diving off of the library though.  Can you imagine what the students studying inside must have been thinking?  I doubt they got too much studying done last night.