Cal Poly

| March 7, 2015, Incident - Final Report

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Introduction

Over the last few years, Cal Poly students

have celebrated St. Patrick’s Day on a large scale. This St. Patrick’s Day celebration, also known by students as

St. Fratty’s Day

, has been held on or before St. Patrick’s Day. A former Cal Poly student, who was part of a Greek organization and lived at the “Pink House” residence located on 348 Hathaway Avenue, created this event approximately six years ago. Others living in the residence have continued to keep the event alive as a tradition. The number of students and others attending has consistently increased over time. In recent years, the City of San Luis Obispo has taken actions to address large and unruly gatherings by increasing fines and patrols for high student traffic locations. As is common practice, Dean of Students Jean DeCosta sent an e-mail to all Cal Poly students on Wednesday, March 4, 2015, with a message of student safety for Spring Break activities and end-of-quarter celebrations, including St. Patrick’s Day (Appendix A). The message also included reminders that double fines for certain municipal code violations would be going into effect – a practice implemented by the City of San Luis Obispo to address the problems associated with large and unruly gatherings in the neighborhoods, such as

St. Fratty’s Day

celebrations in the past. On Thursday morning, March 5, 2015, Cal Poly’s Greek Life Office met with a fraternity president regarding an email warning of a pending social gathering that would occur the weekend of March 7, 2015. The fraternity presid ent also indicated that he had sent an e-mail to his chapter to not attend any social gatherings during the upcoming weekend. He wanted the university to know that he was not participating and would be out of town. All Greek chapters were on “social probation” during this time and were not permitted to have chapter-related social events. The Greek Life Office requested a copy of that e-mail from the fraternity president, which was received and sent to the Greek Life Office and the Dean of Students. Later that day, the Dean of Students Office spoke with the University Police Department regarding the status of Greek social probation and the alleged social gathering that might potentially occur on the weekend of March 7–8, 2015. In response, Universit y Police contacted the SLO Police Department with this information to coordinate staffing, review information, and to collaborate on how to best prepare for the weekend. No one anticipated that the social gathering would begin on Saturday morning, March 7, at 4:30AM. The e-mail information received from the fraternity president did not contain that information.

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