Power Outtage at Stony Brook University

On Wednesday, May 7 at 1:20am Stony Brook University had a major power outage. This prompted students to move outside and in some cases exhibit disorderly conduct.
According to Deputy Chief of Police Suzanne M. Benedetto, the outage affected parts of the Academic Mall, Kelly Quad, Roth Quad, Schomburg Apartments, West Apartments and Tabler Quad. There was a report of a dumpster fire in Tabler Quad, but Kelly is where campus saw the most unrest.
The first incident in Kelly was a young woman who was trapped on an elevator because of the outage. The young woman was on her way down to the ground floor of Dewey College to pick up her laundry when the power went out. Fire Marshalls and SUNY Rescue were notified by members of the Residential Safety Program and worked to free her.
At 1:34am police received a call from Campus Residences about a disorderly crowd in the Kelly Quad courtyard. Students were cheering and yelling in the courtyard, and one group began to march toward Kelly Café cheering "No points, rob Kelly," although they never acted on it. According to Assistant Chief of Police, Doug Little, the crowd was assessed by police to have been made up of 300 to 400 people. University Police responded to the crowd, but crowd control was not an easy task. Police parked their vehicles in the inner quad and then proceeded to move through the crowd.
The crowd was loud and disorderly, but not to the point that police felt any action was necessary. Police were not attempting to disperse the group, nor did they make any arrests according to Little. After remaining within the inner quad for about 20 minutes police moved their cruisers out to Kelly Drive, and were seen with their vehicles until fire alarms, started from a pull box, went off in Hamilton College.
While police were out on Kelly Drive, residents of the quad were starting fires with paper, amongst which were issues of the Stony Brook Statesman, as well as rolls of toilet paper. Resident Assistants and members of the Residential Safety Program doused the flames with fire extinguishers from various buildings on the quad.
The crowd also proceeded to set off fireworks and firecrackers. Misbah Rehman, 19, said he called police and told them that he heard noises that sounded like they could have been firecrackers or gunshots, "You can never be too careful" he told the dispatcher. The dispatcher told Rehman that police were coming to check it out.
Chief Little disavowed any knowledge of fireworks being set off, and when questioned about the lack of arrests Chief Little said that police were working to "Ensure public safety as well as the safety of officers." Chief Benedetto said that police did not make arrests because the situation was no worse than an "Unruly crowd." Little added "The lights went out. . . people said let's go outside. . . they didn't commit any crimes."
The outage for Kelly Quad ended on a loud note. At 2:55am Baruch College had its fire alarm set off by pull box according to the University Police Daily Blotter. At 2:56am Dewey College had the same incident. At 3:05am SUNY Fire and Rescue arrived to Baruch and deactivated its alarm ruling it to be unfounded. At 3:06am Dewey had been deactivated and at 3:10am Kelly Quad had its power restored.
The young woman who was trapped on the elevator was rescued as power came back on. When the Fire Marshalls asked her if she was alright she said "yea. . . I'll be up for a couple of hours though." She then turned and proceeded to walk down the hall to retrieve her laundry from a dryer. The University had its power fully restored by 3:53am. The University Physical Plant attributed the outage to a technical failure with their power delivery system.