The Campbell Club. Just another wild party gone wrong or an excessive use of force? In the swirl of contradicting accounts between a witness, police and residents, University of Oregon senior Caleb Palmer offers his perspective on what he believes sparked the confusion.
“I know that two of my friends that have a lot of know-your-rights training are very knowledgeable about these kind of things, approached the cops and simply said, ‘We do not consent to you being on our property right now,’ at which point the cop actually took my friend by the collar, grabbed him by the collar and said, ‘You’re under arrest,’” Palmer said.
The Campbell Club resident says this moment is the tipping point that made Friday night’s events take a turn for the worse.
“And at that point it became very confusing — several people got involved, several cops got involved, actually came up to our property and started physically …” Palmer trails off.
“Physically trying to pull people onto public property to detain and arrest them,” Lee Andres said, another Campbell Club resident. Eugene Police have a different take on last Friday’s events.
“Typically, in a situation like this … our goal is to speak to the residents of the location and advise them why we are there and what the circumstances are in an effort to gain our compliance and get the situation resolved,” Eugene Police Sgt. David Natt said, who was not one of the responding police personnel. But residents refused to open the door. “It’s been described to me as the door was barricaded from within,” Natt said Sunday in an interview with The Register-Guard.
Sophomore Gavi Harmon was on Campbell Club’s porch when police showed up. She recalls officers acting aggressively and using strong language.
“I was really frightened. (It was) frightening and traumatic because I was out in front and I immediately stepped out of the way, away from all the action because I didn’t want my actions to be mistaken as violent in any way,” Harmon said. “So I immediately stepped away and then my housemates who were on the front porch were immediately arrested and taken away, and they told me to stay on the front porch so I stayed there, and I sat there for probably an hour and a half to two (hours).”
Harmon is being charged with a noise disturbance misdemeanor and was one of 14 individuals who attended an ordinance arraignment on Tuesday.
“I think it could’ve been handled better by both police and Campbell Club members,” said sophomore Elliott Fromm. “Both parties were in the wrong and things could’ve been handled more gently.”
Fromm is a member of Pluto the Planet, a local band that had been performing at the party. Police confiscated the band’s main synthesizer, guitar amp, and bass guitar amp — Fromm estimates that the equipment amounts to around $6,000 that none of the band members can afford to replace.
According to Fromm, when the band decided to leave after police arrived, Eugene Police initially told them it was alright to take their equipment with them. The members took as much as they could carry, but when they returned to pick up the rest of it, officers changed their mind.
“Outside upon exiting a police officer actually told us, ‘Oh your music wasn’t actually the reason police were called. You were not the noise complaint,’ but they proceeded to take our gear anyways,” said band member Tony Svenson in an interview with KVAL.
“Their reasoning they gave us was that it was evidence and they wanted to confiscate anything that caused noise, which in my opinion could be anything,” said Fromm. “You could slam two books together and get a noise complaint if they were loud enough.”
The band is currently trying to reclaim their equipment and are waiting for city prosecutors and Mayor Kitty Piercy to respond. Fromm has also been calling EPD every day and has contacted around 10 separate departments that have all redirected him.
“You know, Eugene’s slogan is ‘Eugene: a great city for the arts and outdoors,’ and our art has been taken away from us,” Fromm said.
However, Fromm says that the band doesn’t want to cause a hassle and only wants their equipment back so they can continue performing and creating music.
Andres and Palmer expressed frustration with Eugene Police, saying that officers had made a point to film the party for some time before approaching the house.
“Within the years that I’ve been here it might’ve been at most twice a year that police would come and cite one house member for noise. It’s been fairly calm and they just tell us to check with our neighbors to make sure we’re not upsetting our neighbors and then every time we do. And so we don’t understand why these parties that we’ve been having for years and years have all of a sudden become such a huge problem, or if they were such a huge problem before, I don’t understand why the police didn’t address it with us.”
According to Palmer, the party was a fundraiser for Sappho: Queer Women’s Discussion Group, and it’s not uncommon for groups (such as The Geology Club and the Civil Liberties Defense Center) to approach the house about hosting parties.
“Most of the fundraisers we have are fundraisers for mostly student groups. We always have a safe space with water and someone who’s coherent/sober,” Palmer said.
Residents of the Campbell Club plan on attending next Monday’s Eugene City Council meeting to speak about the incident.
“We certainly will be attending,” Andres said. “We want to hear what the City Council has to say and we as a house would like to explain our side of things in a public forum.”