This is not an unusual sight at all on a Saturday or Sunday morning in Oregon Hill. It would be nice if VCU sent their little clean-em-up carts down this way on the weekend!
Does anyone have any details on the huge fight on the 300 block of S Laurel Saturday night? When I walked by I saw some kids getting beat with sticks (this was NOT play fighting) and people getting slammed into cars, etc. Did anyone get arrested or seriously hurt?
The police came but it seemed things were coming to an end about the time they got there. As soon as blue lights came in vision, everyone split in different directions – many running through the alley between Cherry and Laurel, some heading towards the lot behind Fine Foods. I was walking away at that point (didn’t want to get involved) so I didn’t get close enough to see if they got anyone. When I originally walked by, someone told me I should leave because he said someone involved had a loaded pistol – this could have easily been false information though.
When I saw this title I thought it was referring to the episode that happened Sunday morning at Holly Street playground. VCU art students were filming a project in which they were smashing glass basketballs on the court in the playground. The Oregon Hill Defenders – that’s my new name for them- Skillet, my husband Dave Hooke, John Stephens, and our neighbor Bob went over and forced them to stop and then to clean up all of the mess. We then found out that they had actually kicked two little girls out of the playground before they started this “art project”. They refused to give their names or the name of the professor they were doing the project for and left before the police got there. The police arrived 45minutes after they were called. Does anyone have any ideas on the best person to contact at VCU to report this? I want to make sure that it is clear that this kind of behavior will NOT be tolerated. Thanks, Dusty
My VCU student neighbors at 300 S Laurel had a raging party Friday night and around 2:30 AM as the party was roaring in the back yard, someone (they claim they dont know who) took a 2X4 to their front fence (a deed which took 1/2 hour to 45 minutes and was very noisy) destroying the fence. They didnt even notice it was happening while it was going on. Saturday night they started up again and around three thirty AM started throwing beer bottles over their fence onto Idlewood Ave, breaking glass all over the street. I called the cops and they arrived shortly thereafter and wrote three summons- two for possession of alcohol by a minor and one for littering (those broken beer bottles). This is a chronic problem at this address and I hope to discuss this and other similar problems at the next OHNA meeting. Im truly sick of this stupid crap.
In regards to Dusty Hook’s comment: The so called “Oregon Hill Defenders” Skillet, Dave Hooke, John Stephens, and Bob did not exercise or model appropriate behavior befitting the title defender. Swearing, yelling, threats of violence, pushing, intimidation, and sexist remarks were all caught on video tape. A father and his two children playing in the park were forced to leave by “The Defenders” excessive use of profanity. If our community is to take care of itself, we need to rise above such behavior in policing our own neighborhood. Why did the police take so long to arrive?
Also, confrontational behavior does not make oregon hill safer, if anything it makes us look bad, and alienates residents from banding together to stop truly dangerous activities. Does roughing up or threatening a few art students really prove anything, other than that we are uncultured and unaccommodating. After inspecting the park myself, I found no traces of glass. Obviously these particular perpetrators were no threat to our neighborhood. I am more concerned that middle aged men are acting like boys looking for a fight.
I did not witness this “glass basketball episode”, but I find it extremely troubling. Regardless of who did what, the park was made unwelcoming to children.
Anonymous, why do you think VCU art students thought it was ok to break glass in a public park in the first place? Why did they think it was ok to ask children to leave for their filming?
I have to say, I find those actions pretty threatening, unaccommodating, and little to do with “culture”. I am also curious what class this was for and if VCU admin has anything to say on this matter.
I am not interested in refereeing a shouting match (and if this is just about name calling then I will shut down comments), nor am I interested in roughing up anyone, but I am interested in making sure that the park is welcoming to children again. On that I hope we can all agree.
Perhaps the police can be called on the morning following the party, say about 8 am and tell the residents of the offending house to pick up the trash or they will get a citation for littering.
Having to wake up early and probably hung over to do some manual labor might get them to pick it up the night before, eventually.
I’m the artist responsible for the incident at the Holly Street Park. First, I would like to say it was not my intention to disrespect or cause a disturbance in the neighborhood. I am a graduate student and this work was done for me not for a professor. This way of working is new to me and I was unaware of the possible negative impact that could arrive with the performance. With that said, I would like to clear a few things up. We didn’t kick children out of the park, we asked them if they could come back in fifteen or twenty minutes. I was worried that they might get frightened or scared and was concerned for their safety. I came to the park with a crew of fifteen people ready to clean up the mess that would be created. We had every intention of leaving the park cleaner than we arrived. What amazed me was the adolescent behavior of middle aged men trying everything the could to provoke a physical confrontation. Their actions kept children out of the park twice as long as my short ten minute performance. At one point one the girls on my crew was lunged at by a man as if he was going to hit her. I am amazed that you would call these men defenders. It seemed to me they just wanted to fight someone. I have the whole incident on video and videos don’t lie. We cleaned up EVERYTHING and as we were leaving we were still being provoked. If you want to change things for the better in your neighborhood I can assure you violent behavior is not the way to achieve it. If you have any questions concerns please email at trgothrup@vcu.edu
Ryan was definitely at fault here for assuming he could come into a City/neighborhood Park and monopolize it in the way he did. There is a procedure for “reserving” Park space for events in Richmond and here it is: First you must call Larry Miller at 646-0037 and ask to reserve a Park for a certain time period. The Parks Dept will determine whether or not your “event” is appropriate or not and if so will charge you 15 dollars an hour plus 15 administrative fee. Of course you cant charge admission or in any way exclude others from the Park as it is public space and therefore open to the public. I cant speak for them, but I would say breaking glass in a City Park on a Sunday would not be an appropriate event. Since you did not even seek a permit, and excluded people (even voluntarily) you are egregiously in the wrong here. If the police came and determined you were creating a nuisance or disturbing the peace, you could be given a warning or even banned from ALL City Parks indefinitely (you could petition the director J R Pope to allow you access to return). I would say under the circumstances, you got off pretty easy and the tone of your response shows you have a chip on your shoulder. In the future, please consider other areas of the city for your “art”.
In regards to Todd’s comment: You are right I didn’t go through the proper procedure because I was truly unaware of those procedures. For that, I do apologize. As a student, this is all new to me and I am learning. I didn’t say I didn’t do anything wrong though I would like to state that it wasn’t my intent to cause a disturbance. The only chip I have is the physical and verbal abuse asserted on my crew by middle aged men that represent the Oregon Hill Neighborhood. Swearing, yelling, threats of violence, pushing, intimidation, and sexist remarks are not adult behavior. I have seen children act more grown up than these men. They did their civic duty by calling the police everything else was childish adolescent behavior. I see the concern that was voiced and I apologize for my negligence.
I’ve been watching this conversation, and I’m thinking a few things:
1. How wonderful it is that a student of art was inspired in some way by our neighborhood.
2. How wonderful it is that we have residents in our neighborhood who care about their park and the neighborhood’s children.
3. How wonderful it is that a student, through his art education, got a civics lesson too.
First of all I would like to apologize to Todd for everything that has happened thus far in our neighborhood. The incident that happened on the Friday night was travesty to us and our neighbors, because of how awful our front yard looks without our fence. We do not know the people responsible and have no understanding on why it occurred. I do not know if any of our neighbors were witnessing it at the time, but there should have been communication to us, for the sake of protecting the neighborhood. Any assumption that we would do that to our property, is ridiculous. Saturday night we again apologize for, it was a horrendous act. I was not there to handle any of it, but again proper communication could have resolved the incident peacefully, without having to involve the authorities. If there had been one of my roommates could have handled the situation immediately and had the culprit clean up the mess. I think communication is key at this point, for we were trying to keep as mild as possible at our house, we know now that it just gets too noisy for our neighbors. We are trying to be respectable neighbors and we need more direct communication (not blogging or letters). To conclude, I am saying that we need a little help from our neighbors to know what exactly the problems are without having to speak to cops, blog, or receive letters. It would be a lot easier, not only for us, but our neighbors. We hope to discuss this at the meeting on Tuesday. Thank You
I accept the apology on the condition that the stupidity going on at your house stops immediately. Therein lies the problem- your letter here shows a decent young man, the same as ALL my daytime interactions with you and your roomates. Once midnight or 2 or 3 AM strikes, the situation changes and the alcohol seems to take over. After our first altercation ( loud drunken party with the kid pissing in my front yard at 2:30AM) I wrote you a letter which I thought established guidelines for what I consider responsible behavior. You chose to instead say screw you and take the stupidity a step further with the yelling and screaming and pitching the beer bottles over the fence onto Idlewood at 3:30 AM. Imagine if one of those bottles had hit a bicyclist or automobile and caused someone to get seriously injured. One point from that letter that I want to emphasize is that Oregon Hill is more than just college students. There are working people who get up early, children and elderly/retired folks also living here and they deserve consideration. My other next door neighbor (whose house is about 17 feet from your front porch) takes care of his Mom who just came back home from the hospital and is recuperating from 14 days on life support. Think about that the next time your party starts getting out of hand at 2:30. Regarding your front fence, as I told you, the destruction took place at around 2:30AM and took about half an hour to do. The noise in the back yard (screaming and hollering from your party) was just as loud as the goings on out front. A neighbor did look out her window and saw college aged kids with 2X4′s wailing on the fence as well as the guide wire to the telephone pole. It was surprising you didnt notice as you (or your roomates) were home and then you chose not to make a police report. As far as communication is concerned, Im not approaching a screaming drunk at 3:30AM throwing beer bottles into the street, We pay Police officers to do that. At this point, you know what is and is not expected from your house so no more apologies will be considered. There are ways to legally stop a nuisance house. I have seen the same problems happen just last year with VCU students across the street whose parties got out of hand and who eventually got maced and robbed of around $8000 worth of stuff from someone they met at one of their parties. As I also wrote and now emphasize, Oregon Hill is an historic neighborhood and many of us feel privileged to live here. It is not an auxiliary campus of VCU.
I Googled looking for information about another fight in Green Alley on Tuesday afternoon (Veteran’s Day). It was over by the time I noticed the ambulance and lots of City & VCU police cars. I asked some college girls watching from their porch what happened and they said “like 30 guys” were fighting. I asked if they were students – this is just behind the “party house” on the 100 block of Cherry St in the photo above. The girls said that some of them looked too old to be students. I believe all the apartments on Cherry between Cary & Green Alley are rented out by Tony Dalton & his brother. The permanent non-student residents never know what the next semester will bring in loud, violent behavior from kids on those aprtments. But 30 guys in a gang brawl is a new low.
I have great childhood memories of playing
at the Holly St. playground in the 1970′s. I think there are others who feel the same.
Keep up the park for the kids.I spent a lot
of my childhood there.I lived at 714 S.
Laurel St. with my parent’s back then.
So keep it safe for the kids, it’s a great
place to play.I even took my own 2 kids
there a few years ago to play in the water
fountain.Lots of love to you all.
Jimmy Cottrell
Jan,17,2009
This is not an unusual sight at all on a Saturday or Sunday morning in Oregon Hill. It would be nice if VCU sent their little clean-em-up carts down this way on the weekend!
Does anyone have any details on the huge fight on the 300 block of S Laurel Saturday night? When I walked by I saw some kids getting beat with sticks (this was NOT play fighting) and people getting slammed into cars, etc. Did anyone get arrested or seriously hurt?
I don’t have any. I had heard someone say there had been a fight, but no details. I am often the last person to know though.
So, did police come?
Why’d you drink all that beer, Scott? Dang. J/k, j/k.
The police came but it seemed things were coming to an end about the time they got there. As soon as blue lights came in vision, everyone split in different directions – many running through the alley between Cherry and Laurel, some heading towards the lot behind Fine Foods. I was walking away at that point (didn’t want to get involved) so I didn’t get close enough to see if they got anyone. When I originally walked by, someone told me I should leave because he said someone involved had a loaded pistol – this could have easily been false information though.
That’s awful. These kids (idiots) should be kicked out of school.
When I saw this title I thought it was referring to the episode that happened Sunday morning at Holly Street playground. VCU art students were filming a project in which they were smashing glass basketballs on the court in the playground. The Oregon Hill Defenders – that’s my new name for them- Skillet, my husband Dave Hooke, John Stephens, and our neighbor Bob went over and forced them to stop and then to clean up all of the mess. We then found out that they had actually kicked two little girls out of the playground before they started this “art project”. They refused to give their names or the name of the professor they were doing the project for and left before the police got there. The police arrived 45minutes after they were called. Does anyone have any ideas on the best person to contact at VCU to report this? I want to make sure that it is clear that this kind of behavior will NOT be tolerated. Thanks, Dusty
My VCU student neighbors at 300 S Laurel had a raging party Friday night and around 2:30 AM as the party was roaring in the back yard, someone (they claim they dont know who) took a 2X4 to their front fence (a deed which took 1/2 hour to 45 minutes and was very noisy) destroying the fence. They didnt even notice it was happening while it was going on. Saturday night they started up again and around three thirty AM started throwing beer bottles over their fence onto Idlewood Ave, breaking glass all over the street. I called the cops and they arrived shortly thereafter and wrote three summons- two for possession of alcohol by a minor and one for littering (those broken beer bottles). This is a chronic problem at this address and I hope to discuss this and other similar problems at the next OHNA meeting. Im truly sick of this stupid crap.
My apologies- the address of the chronic problem party house is 300 S Cherry. No problems with 300 S Laurel.
In regards to Dusty Hook’s comment: The so called “Oregon Hill Defenders” Skillet, Dave Hooke, John Stephens, and Bob did not exercise or model appropriate behavior befitting the title defender. Swearing, yelling, threats of violence, pushing, intimidation, and sexist remarks were all caught on video tape. A father and his two children playing in the park were forced to leave by “The Defenders” excessive use of profanity. If our community is to take care of itself, we need to rise above such behavior in policing our own neighborhood. Why did the police take so long to arrive?
Also, confrontational behavior does not make oregon hill safer, if anything it makes us look bad, and alienates residents from banding together to stop truly dangerous activities. Does roughing up or threatening a few art students really prove anything, other than that we are uncultured and unaccommodating. After inspecting the park myself, I found no traces of glass. Obviously these particular perpetrators were no threat to our neighborhood. I am more concerned that middle aged men are acting like boys looking for a fight.
I did not witness this “glass basketball episode”, but I find it extremely troubling. Regardless of who did what, the park was made unwelcoming to children.
Anonymous, why do you think VCU art students thought it was ok to break glass in a public park in the first place? Why did they think it was ok to ask children to leave for their filming?
I have to say, I find those actions pretty threatening, unaccommodating, and little to do with “culture”. I am also curious what class this was for and if VCU admin has anything to say on this matter.
I am not interested in refereeing a shouting match (and if this is just about name calling then I will shut down comments), nor am I interested in roughing up anyone, but I am interested in making sure that the park is welcoming to children again. On that I hope we can all agree.
Perhaps the police can be called on the morning following the party, say about 8 am and tell the residents of the offending house to pick up the trash or they will get a citation for littering.
Having to wake up early and probably hung over to do some manual labor might get them to pick it up the night before, eventually.
I’m the artist responsible for the incident at the Holly Street Park. First, I would like to say it was not my intention to disrespect or cause a disturbance in the neighborhood. I am a graduate student and this work was done for me not for a professor. This way of working is new to me and I was unaware of the possible negative impact that could arrive with the performance. With that said, I would like to clear a few things up. We didn’t kick children out of the park, we asked them if they could come back in fifteen or twenty minutes. I was worried that they might get frightened or scared and was concerned for their safety. I came to the park with a crew of fifteen people ready to clean up the mess that would be created. We had every intention of leaving the park cleaner than we arrived. What amazed me was the adolescent behavior of middle aged men trying everything the could to provoke a physical confrontation. Their actions kept children out of the park twice as long as my short ten minute performance. At one point one the girls on my crew was lunged at by a man as if he was going to hit her. I am amazed that you would call these men defenders. It seemed to me they just wanted to fight someone. I have the whole incident on video and videos don’t lie. We cleaned up EVERYTHING and as we were leaving we were still being provoked. If you want to change things for the better in your neighborhood I can assure you violent behavior is not the way to achieve it. If you have any questions concerns please email at trgothrup@vcu.edu
Dear Ryan and neighbors-
Ryan was definitely at fault here for assuming he could come into a City/neighborhood Park and monopolize it in the way he did. There is a procedure for “reserving” Park space for events in Richmond and here it is: First you must call Larry Miller at 646-0037 and ask to reserve a Park for a certain time period. The Parks Dept will determine whether or not your “event” is appropriate or not and if so will charge you 15 dollars an hour plus 15 administrative fee. Of course you cant charge admission or in any way exclude others from the Park as it is public space and therefore open to the public. I cant speak for them, but I would say breaking glass in a City Park on a Sunday would not be an appropriate event. Since you did not even seek a permit, and excluded people (even voluntarily) you are egregiously in the wrong here. If the police came and determined you were creating a nuisance or disturbing the peace, you could be given a warning or even banned from ALL City Parks indefinitely (you could petition the director J R Pope to allow you access to return). I would say under the circumstances, you got off pretty easy and the tone of your response shows you have a chip on your shoulder. In the future, please consider other areas of the city for your “art”.
In regards to Todd’s comment: You are right I didn’t go through the proper procedure because I was truly unaware of those procedures. For that, I do apologize. As a student, this is all new to me and I am learning. I didn’t say I didn’t do anything wrong though I would like to state that it wasn’t my intent to cause a disturbance. The only chip I have is the physical and verbal abuse asserted on my crew by middle aged men that represent the Oregon Hill Neighborhood. Swearing, yelling, threats of violence, pushing, intimidation, and sexist remarks are not adult behavior. I have seen children act more grown up than these men. They did their civic duty by calling the police everything else was childish adolescent behavior. I see the concern that was voiced and I apologize for my negligence.
Thank you Ryan for taking resposibility for your part of this unfortunate incident and for having the foresight to bring a crew to clean up the park.
It is unsettling to hear that you were bullied out of the park.
Ryan-
I googled the name Ryan Gothrup and it brought up a website with pics of absolutely beautiful glass pieces. If thats your work it is awesome.
I’ve been watching this conversation, and I’m thinking a few things:
1. How wonderful it is that a student of art was inspired in some way by our neighborhood.
2. How wonderful it is that we have residents in our neighborhood who care about their park and the neighborhood’s children.
3. How wonderful it is that a student, through his art education, got a civics lesson too.
First of all I would like to apologize to Todd for everything that has happened thus far in our neighborhood. The incident that happened on the Friday night was travesty to us and our neighbors, because of how awful our front yard looks without our fence. We do not know the people responsible and have no understanding on why it occurred. I do not know if any of our neighbors were witnessing it at the time, but there should have been communication to us, for the sake of protecting the neighborhood. Any assumption that we would do that to our property, is ridiculous. Saturday night we again apologize for, it was a horrendous act. I was not there to handle any of it, but again proper communication could have resolved the incident peacefully, without having to involve the authorities. If there had been one of my roommates could have handled the situation immediately and had the culprit clean up the mess. I think communication is key at this point, for we were trying to keep as mild as possible at our house, we know now that it just gets too noisy for our neighbors. We are trying to be respectable neighbors and we need more direct communication (not blogging or letters). To conclude, I am saying that we need a little help from our neighbors to know what exactly the problems are without having to speak to cops, blog, or receive letters. It would be a lot easier, not only for us, but our neighbors. We hope to discuss this at the meeting on Tuesday. Thank You
I accept the apology on the condition that the stupidity going on at your house stops immediately. Therein lies the problem- your letter here shows a decent young man, the same as ALL my daytime interactions with you and your roomates. Once midnight or 2 or 3 AM strikes, the situation changes and the alcohol seems to take over. After our first altercation ( loud drunken party with the kid pissing in my front yard at 2:30AM) I wrote you a letter which I thought established guidelines for what I consider responsible behavior. You chose to instead say screw you and take the stupidity a step further with the yelling and screaming and pitching the beer bottles over the fence onto Idlewood at 3:30 AM. Imagine if one of those bottles had hit a bicyclist or automobile and caused someone to get seriously injured. One point from that letter that I want to emphasize is that Oregon Hill is more than just college students. There are working people who get up early, children and elderly/retired folks also living here and they deserve consideration. My other next door neighbor (whose house is about 17 feet from your front porch) takes care of his Mom who just came back home from the hospital and is recuperating from 14 days on life support. Think about that the next time your party starts getting out of hand at 2:30. Regarding your front fence, as I told you, the destruction took place at around 2:30AM and took about half an hour to do. The noise in the back yard (screaming and hollering from your party) was just as loud as the goings on out front. A neighbor did look out her window and saw college aged kids with 2X4′s wailing on the fence as well as the guide wire to the telephone pole. It was surprising you didnt notice as you (or your roomates) were home and then you chose not to make a police report. As far as communication is concerned, Im not approaching a screaming drunk at 3:30AM throwing beer bottles into the street, We pay Police officers to do that. At this point, you know what is and is not expected from your house so no more apologies will be considered. There are ways to legally stop a nuisance house. I have seen the same problems happen just last year with VCU students across the street whose parties got out of hand and who eventually got maced and robbed of around $8000 worth of stuff from someone they met at one of their parties. As I also wrote and now emphasize, Oregon Hill is an historic neighborhood and many of us feel privileged to live here. It is not an auxiliary campus of VCU.
Todd,
Try housing the party down with a fire extinguisher. It worked wonders for me on the 500 block of Pine Street.
I Googled looking for information about another fight in Green Alley on Tuesday afternoon (Veteran’s Day). It was over by the time I noticed the ambulance and lots of City & VCU police cars. I asked some college girls watching from their porch what happened and they said “like 30 guys” were fighting. I asked if they were students – this is just behind the “party house” on the 100 block of Cherry St in the photo above. The girls said that some of them looked too old to be students. I believe all the apartments on Cherry between Cary & Green Alley are rented out by Tony Dalton & his brother. The permanent non-student residents never know what the next semester will bring in loud, violent behavior from kids on those aprtments. But 30 guys in a gang brawl is a new low.
I have great childhood memories of playing
at the Holly St. playground in the 1970′s. I think there are others who feel the same.
Keep up the park for the kids.I spent a lot
of my childhood there.I lived at 714 S.
Laurel St. with my parent’s back then.
So keep it safe for the kids, it’s a great
place to play.I even took my own 2 kids
there a few years ago to play in the water
fountain.Lots of love to you all.
Jimmy Cottrell
Jan,17,2009