A prosecutor vowed Sunday to bring charges against anyone that can be identified who damaged property or caused injuries at a party involving hundreds of people near the University of Colorado Boulder.
Violence and destruction erupted as officers broke up the party on Saturday, police said. Three officers suffered minor injuries from being struck by bricks and rocks, Boulder police told news outlets. The department brought in its SWAT team to help clear the flood of people along a street in an area near the school known as the Hill.
Images shared by local media showed no social distancing and most without masks despite the coronavirus pandemic. An estimated 800 to 1,000 people were there. A few in the raucous crowd damaged and flipped over a vehicle. Others set off fireworks in the middle of the street. A law enforcement armored vehicle and a fire truck were damaged.
“There is no excuse for this conduct,” Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty said in a statement. He called their behavior during the pandemic “shameful.”
Police said in a statement that officers were "reviewing all body worn camera footage and shared social media videos/photos to identify the individuals involved in damaging property and assaulting first responders.”
The university also addressed the incident in a statement saying it would not tolerate any students “engaging in acts of violence or damaging property.”
CU Boulder students returned to campus for hybrid and in-person learning in mid-February.
“Any student who is found responsible for having engaged in acts of violence toward the law enforcement or other first responders will be removed from CU Boulder and not readmitted,” the university said.
Police said in a tweet after shortly after 9 p.m. that the scene had been cleared. No arrests were immediately announced.
After the party broke up, other students came to the scene with garbage bags to pick up the large amounts of trash left behind.
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