Thrown bottles and blood baffle party's neighbors

Katie Botwin and Sara Armgardt walked into their front yard near Blevins Court on Sunday morning to see destruction: A ruined tomato plant, beer bottles and toppled planters littered the entrance to their home.

"Is this blood? There's blood on our driveway," Armgardt said.

Small drops of crimson stood out against the concrete.

Kenny Dominguez, 20, searching for missing earrings from the scuffles that erupted late Saturday night, chimed in: "There were like eight fights in your yard."

He described the scene as similar to the Los Angeles riots of the 1990s: Fights, thrown bottles, uprooted street signs. He relayed how the initial response from Fort Collins Police Services found a handful of officers outnumbered by a riotous crowd. People threw bottles at the police cars with abandon, he said.

"People didn't care if the cops saw who they were," the Colorado State University sophomore said. He also said that the people fighting weren't fellow students. Probably people scoping out the cul-de-sac for the parties it's known for, he said.

Botwin and Armgardt, both 21, only saw the aftermath of the party. They had gone to Old Town Saturday night, getting back after the incident, and left asking, "What the hell happened?"

When police initially arrived at the party at about 10:50 p.m. Saturday, they estimated 300 to 400 people milling around. They called for backup, which arrived about an hour and a half later. Most of the crowd had dispersed by then, police said. No one was injured or arrested at the incident, FCPS spokesperson Matt Johnson said Sunday.

While backup officers organized, initial responders hung back to watch the crowd for injuries. Johnson said they wanted to avoid an inappropriate response that could lead to either law enforcement personnel or partygoers being injured. By the time reinforcements arrived, Johnson said most of the bottle and rock throwers had burned themselves out and gone home.

"We don't want to raise that to a level where we take foolish risks in the safety of our officers or foolish risks in the use of force used on the crowd," Johnson said.

While it was a safe conclusion, Johnson said local police will be investigating apparent criminal behavior in what he said fits the state definition of a riot.

CSU also warned of consequences for any participants that fall under its purview.

"If any of our students are found to be involved in behavior related to the disturbance, they will face consequences through the university conduct system, as well as possible legal ramifications," CSU spokeswoman Dell Rae Ciaravola wrote in an email. "CSU police will work closely with Fort Collins police to identify any students who may have been involved in illegal behavior."

While there were reports of pulled-out street signs and the street becoming a sea of broken glass, much was put back in place before 10 a.m. Sunday. Stop signs at the intersection separating the neighborhood from the CSU campus stood in the ground; only the freshness of the dirt seating them in place betrayed what happened. Some plastic cups littered yards and a few pockets of shattered glass dotted sidewalks, gutters and driveways.

Johnson said responding officers reported that people in the crowd were lighting fireworks or some kind of smoking device. Police did not use any chemical agents at the incident, he wrote in an email. A photo posted online showed a smoking device in the middle of a street with the caption, "And the tear gas begins." Johnson said it wasn't of high enough quality to say with certainty what it was or what was happening.

Cory Adamson, 34 and living in a house halfway up the block from Armgardt and Botwin, described a different scene from Dominguez. A party host had warned him beforehand that people were coming over, as the host had done with Armgardt and Botwin, and said to find him if it got too loud or bothersome. Adamson thought it pretty upstanding of a college student to do that. Johnson didn't know if the party had been registered with the city. Police responded after complaints that it had spilled into the street.

"From a distance, it looks like every house is having a party because it takes pretty much all available space," Johnson said.

Adamson watched the students milling about Saturday night and remarked afterward that he was surprised at how quiet the gathering was. He even used it as a lesson for his pre-teen son about the kind of camaraderie that comes with college life, should he work hard enough to make it there. Adamson thought the whole scene was a pretty cool display of school spirit, at least until police showed up.

He's not sure what set off the response, but he said he saw about four police cars race down the street, blowing through the stop signs later used to menace them. He was surprised no one was hit by the cars, given much of the street and cul-de-sac was a shoulder-to-shoulder mass of people.

From there, the mood changed for the worse, turning Adamson's pleasant surprise of the party's ordered chaos into disappointment as the maturity level "went from adult to toddler real quick."

"I guess it took just one kid throwing a bottle at a cop car or whatever and it escalated from there," he said.

While Adamson puts blame on both sides, he characterizes the police as the ember that ignited a tinderbox with an all-too-aggressive response.

"There's fault on both sides," he said. "But initial fault came from the police department."

Johnson said he can't directly rebut Adamson's story without more first-hand knowledge, but said FCPS protocol calls for a methodical, controlled response to precarious situations like this. It's one Fort Collins police have had recent experience with — it responded to another party-turned-riot in that neighborhood in April. Johnson didn't know if the two riots stemmed from the same person or house.

Fort Collins police already focuses on that neighborhood for party control, he said. He didn't say if police services would handle that neighborhood or large parties differently as a result of Saturday's trouble.

Large parties with police response in Fort Collins:

April 2014: A 20-person party draws 200. Host calls cops, some partygoers lob bottles and rocks at officers.

April 2013: Police use tear gas and pepper spray to break up a party turned riot in the Summerhill neighborhood.

August 2011: 'Mega-party' planners expect 500 people, get closer to 3,000.