Editorial: Students able to 'Keep it Chico' last weekend

Out of 142 total arrests made over the Halloween weekend, 32 were Chico State students.

Those numbers leave a staggering 110 arrests that were non-students. That’s roughly 80 percent of the arrests made this weekend.

At the risk of sounding self-congratulatory, good for you, Chico State. The numbers prove students truly want to keep Chico a safe place to be, even while they’re partying.

That being said, it needs to be mentioned that there were two stabbings and one drive-by shooting this weekend.

The victim of the drive-by, a female Chico State student, was shot in the shoulder. Because they did not take place downtown, we can only assume these events were not necessarily caused by riotous partying, but by actions unrelated to Halloween festivities.

In fact, the only reason we’re even mentioned in the same breath as the recent drive-by is a student was the victim.

It’s important to make the distinction, because when there are problems in the community — especially during major party weekends — the students tend to get blamed, whether they were actually responsible for it.

The majority of arrests were not of us, but rather of “non-students.” That could mean native Chicoans, Butte College students or out-of-towners.

It’s still unacceptable there were a lot of arrests, but it’s nice that, for once, we weren’t the majority of people being arrested.

We all know out-of-towners tend to treat our town badly, but the first step to making sure people respect our town is to respect it ourselves.

With this weekend, Chico State students proved they could “Keep it Chico” and fight the stereotype of being a bunch of drunken, riotous college kids.

The next step is to ensure the community as a whole is respectful. Then we can start to work on making sure people from other cities respect it, too.
 

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