Conall Lynch
My frat was always on good terms with the cops in our town. They would come to our house Saturday nights for a few minutes and give us a version of the talk your parents gave to you in high school basically saying “yea we know what’s going on just keep the noise down and the beer inside the house”. I remember one time a group of girls walked outside completely blacked out, stumbling over each other as 2 cops were giving me this speech, and even then all they cared was that they were no beer and they were getting home safe. Things were great. We got maybe 3 noise complaints that entire year. Then, everything changed when the fire nation attacked.
I don’t know what happened the following year, but the cops took some nark steroids and were busting every fraternity and party on and off-campus. I’m serious. Every party either got shut down or given tickets for a noise complaint. My frat especially was getting busted every single time we threw on a weekend. We even tried a system with our DJ where if the cops came or we were being too loud, a person outside would push a button on the house and a red light would appear inside the DJ booth telling him to turn down the music. That didn’t help. We had 10 people living in the fraternity house at the time (including me) and because we were getting so many tickets, we would rotate through house guys every night for who would take the ticket. It got to the point where we could only throw on weekdays… which was awesome for me (smaller parties, easier to socialize) but terrible for the frat (less money, less girls). The cops caught on to that too so we had to stop having parties altogether.
This basically divided our frat into 2 equally annoying groups. Some people were saying “We can’t throw. We will just get another ticket” and others saying “No we need to throw to pay off the tickets we already have”. And when I say this divided our fraternity I mean people were physically fighting during meetings about this. I’m talking in your face pointing and shoving. It was the closest my experience in a frat ever got to what you see in movies and tv with shirtless guys complaining about not getting laid in a living room full of vapes. You had douchebags screaming at our president that we need to have parties because “girls don’t even like us anymore” and you had losers whimpering in group chats that “we shouldn’t throw for the rest of the semester and focus on philanthropies”. This went on for a good month until no middle ground was met and we decided to throw again. This decision was met with our complicated but successful dispute resolution tactic that my frat uses called “A lot of people are going to be mad but who cares I’m the president”. Needless to say, Jonny Law was not a fan.
The following Saturday we had probably the biggest party on campus because no one else was throwing. I guess they all caught wind of what the police had planned for that night and played it safe. We did not. We had to stop letting people in at like 11:30 which never happened to us. About an hour in, 4 cop cars come racing down the street with their sirens and lights on Blues Brothers style, aggressively pulling up to the front of our house. About 6 officers step out of their cars and begin running up our yard. We had at least 4 brothers outside at all times but the cops just pushed them aside and started down the driveway. They made their way to the storm doors, which were conveniently close by for the cops to force the bed bug mattress off and pull open, exposing our basement and direct evidence of people trying to have fun at college.
To those saying they can’t do that, I would say yea but they knew what was going on. They had planned this all out. They sent UNDERCOVER COPS to our party to scope out our house and then notify their seal SEAL Team Dicks to bust in and catch us. The undercover cops had FAKE school IDs that allowed them to get past our high-level security of two business majors trading crypto in our driveway. The other 3 cops then confronted our head of security, who I’m going to call Paul Blart, and told him to get all the people who lived in the house outside. He then ran inside and started screaming that the cops were here which turned a house with loud people inside, to a house with loud people trying to get outside. It was like that fake fire scene from The Office. Everyone was either running, screaming, or both. Side note, to all those people that run and panic when they hear that the cops are at a party, I get the impulse, but seriously stop. You are only putting you and the people at the party in more danger. 90% of the time the only people that get punished are the people who live in the house. Cops don’t give a shit about you UNLESS you go outside or make a scene. So just stay inside, sneak a beer from the keg, and shut the fuck up.
Anyway, Paul Blart was slowly making his way around the house trying to find us house guys. I say slowly because again, this was the biggest party we had all year so the house was packed. Keep in mind, the cops opened our storm door to the basement so brothers who were in the basement were telling people to go upstairs at the same time that brothers upstairs were telling people to go downstairs. The house was packed with drunk college idiots taking half inch steps back and forth our kitchen and basement stairs. At this time, I was locked in my room upstairs with a friend because he got a text saying that the cops are here. I know I sound like a pussy there, but I didn’t know about the 4 fucking squad cars and the undercover cops. I just thought it was another noise complaint, for which it was not my turn to take the blame. I could hear people from the floor below me trying to whisper, but when everyone is whispering it’s just as loud as regular talking. So I go downstairs to help quiet people down and give them my “sneak a beer and shut the fuck up” speech when Paul Blart grabs my arm and tells me about the squad cars and how they are looking for house guys. I tell him that it’s not my turn for the ticket but he says “no they want ALL THE HOUSE GUYS”. My heart sinks with each small shuffle I take through a loud group of people “whispering” before I get to the door.
And that is where I will end the 1st part of this story because reading is hard and suspense is fun.
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