On Thursday, August 10, an altercation broke out at the Langston Center, which led to security pepper spraying party-goers at the building, shutting down the party after only an hour.
At Langston, there is a tradition where typically on Thursday there is a student thrown event called “Thirsty Thursday,” where students celebrate an early start to the weekend. Last week’s event was held at The Langston Center, where hundreds of students lined up outside waiting to enter the building. After
several minutes, people were patted down and let into The Langston Center.
London Brookins, a 27-year-old junior from California, said, “It wasn’t really different from a regular night when we have parties; I just know it was just more hectic.” Brookins was one of the hosts for that night at The Langston Center, which is often rented out for events such as “Thirsty Thursday.”
When things started to get out of control, Brookins was at the front of the building collecting money, but was still unable to see how the incident started.
As the party continued, more and more people started lining up outside the venue, causing people to be crammed together and become increasingly impatient. “A lot of people were rushing the door, so we had to pretty much take
order,” Brookins said. This is when security utilized their pepper spray as a solution to control the crowd. Hannah Weather, a 20-year-old junior
from Chicago, was present and in front of the line when the pepper spraying started.
Weather was not heavily affected by the pepper spray but said, “I did see people pass out from it and start throwing up.” Even though the spraying happened outside of the building, it began to travel inside The Langston Center, which led to people fleeing the building. Amid the chaos, people were falling and slipping on the floor and landing on each other. Trejon James, a senior from Topeka, Kansas, said, “The floor is really slick, so people were kind of mopping against each other, sliding and slipping, and trying to get out the door.” Once people started to feel the effects, the crowd quickly dispersed.
In the days following, students expressed frustration about why the security opted to use pepper spray as a solution. Langston’s public relations team made a statement on August 21st stating that the university is not involved in or
associated with any events outside of Langston’s campus. According to the office of public relations “Even though it has the name linked, attached to it, the university is in no way shape or form attached to that building.” The Langston Center is privately owned, and the security was hired by the hosts of the event. It is unknown if the security personnel who used pepper spray will be impacted professionally by the incident.
According to Brookins, after the incident a gate was put up in front of the Langston Center to keep future lines in order. Brookins said, “There’s lots of money to be made. Tuition needs to be paid. So, we are most definitely going to have some parties and have these students pay up their parent’s money to get into these parties.”
Julian Austin
Staff Writer
Julian Austin is a junior broadcast
journalism major
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