Early Saturday morning, Campus Safety responded to a call for a disturbance on Frye Street where a local threatened a student and safety officer with a broken bottle.

Campus Safety was called near 1:30 a.m. and responded to the scene in front of 20 Frye Street, a building which houses Bates staff members located between Chase House and Pierce House, according to Campus Safety’s crime log. Director of Campus Safety Paul Menice told The Student that someone called and reported that there were locals harassing students.  

A confrontation between a student and a local took place. The local threatened the student with a broken bottle. Officers attempted to intervene, and the local started to swing the bottle in the direction of the student and the officer.

Two locals were involved with the incident. It is unclear what the second person was doing at this time.

The Lewiston Police Department (LPD) was called for assistance, and the locals fled the scene on foot when they arrived. No one was injured during the confrontation. 

Tucker Barber ‘21 witnessed the event and provided additional details. He was walking back to his room in Carriage House, located next to 10 Frye, after a late night working on his senior physics thesis. He initially described the incident as a “brawl.”

Barber said he saw two men chasing each other around a car and heard yells containing racial slurs. 

“At one point, one of the men picked up a bottle and the other guy repeatedly yelled ‘put the bottle down, put the bottle down,’ like, a hundred times,” he said. “And then, they were just running around. One of the men was aggressively chasing the other one around.”

Menace said Campus Safety did not note any racial element to the incident. It is unclear whether the two men chasing each other around the car were both locals or if one was the student who was threatened. 

“There were no indications when the Officers arrived or from the statements from the students present that there was a racial element to the altercation,” Menice said.

At one point, one of them ran on top of a parked car, Barber said. This is when Campus Safety came and attempted to separate the two people. The LPD arrived soon after and the locals fled.

According to Lt. David St. Pierre of the LPD, notes from LPD officers following the incident report that the student indicated two people were harassing him. These records further indicated that the student was uncooperative and would not talk with police, although Campus Safety was able to ID the student before he left.  

No arrests were made from this incident.