NEW BRUNSWICK — After 30 years, Rutgers University is killing Rutgersfest. Rutgers President Richard McCormick sent a campus-wide e-mail Tuesday announcing he is permanently canceling the annual concert that marks the end of the school year because it has grown too dangerous. Last week’s Rutgersfest attracted more than 40,000 people and ended with a string of shootings and fights...
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View full sizeView of Old Queens Hall at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.NEW BRUNSWICK — After 30 years, Rutgers University is killing Rutgersfest.
Rutgers President Richard McCormick sent a campus-wide e-mail Tuesday announcing he is permanently canceling the annual concert that marks the end of the school year because it has grown too dangerous. Last week’s Rutgersfest attracted more than 40,000 people and ended with a string of shootings and fights in New Brunswick that left at least five people injured. None were Rutgers students.
"The safety of our university community, and that of our neighbors, is paramount, and we cannot risk further danger or the possible loss of life," McCormick wrote. "The problems that occur following Rutgersfest have grown beyond our capacity to manage them, and the only responsible course of action is to cancel the event."
The president’s decision marks the end of one of the most popular student-run events at the state university. Word of Rutgersfest’s demise spread quickly across the university as students used Twitter and Facebook to express their disappointment the three-decade-old tradition was done.
Freshman Zach Lloyd said he heard gunshots when he returned to the New Brunswick campus after Friday’s Rutgersfest. He suspected university officials would have to respond to the growing violence.
"It was almost inevitable that they were going to do something," said Lloyd, 19, of Allendale.
Other students said they were frustrated officials canceled Rutgersfest instead of redesigning the event so it was limited to university students.
"It’s only dangerous because it’s people not from Rutgers," said sophomore Carrie Doyle, 20. "I know plenty of kids that went out and didn’t get into fights ... I hate it when Rutgers gets a bad rap for these things."
This year’s Rutgersfest was held Friday on the Busch campus in Piscataway. The free, all-day event included boardwalk-style carnival games, food booths and a concert featuring hip-hop artists Pitbull and Yelawolf and electronic-pop act 3OH!3.
The crowd included a large number of high school and college students from other schools who learned about the event through Facebook, Twitter and other social media, campus officials said. When the concert ended at 8 p.m., many of the attendees took university shuttle buses to College Avenue in New Brunswick to go to house parties and local bars.
Most of the violence took place Friday night and early Saturday morning in unrelated incidents near bars a few blocks from campus, police said.
The injured, all male, included an 18-year-old who was shot once in each leg, a 19-year-old shot twice in the buttocks and another man grazed by a bullet on his hip. A 17-year-old was also hit in the head with a bottle, sending him to the hospital.
On Saturday morning, another 17-year-old was hospitalized when he was shot in the hip, police said. Several videos were also posted on YouTube claiming to show fights that occurred after Rutgersfest.
Peter Mangarella, New Brunswick’s police director, publicly criticized Rutgers for failing to address the city’s security concerns. On Monday, Lt. J.T. Miller, the department’s spokesman, said the police director "respects President McCormick and the university’s decision to cancel Rutgersfest."
Rutgersfest was planned by the student-run Rutgers University Programming Association and the university’s Department of Student Life, using a portion of the money students pay in their mandatory student fees. The event was also funded by donations and money students raised through t-shirt sales and other fundraisers.
State Sen. Joe Kyrillos (R-Monmouth), who plans to propose legislation that would allow undergraduates to opt out of paying student fees, said the problems at Rutgersfest are another example of the need for increased oversight of how student entertainment funds are spent.
"It is about ensuring that those paying tuition have appropriate knowledge of how their dollars are being used and are given input into a fund that is supposed to be for their collective benefit," Kyrillos said.
By Kelly Heyboer and Karl de Vries/The Star-Ledger
Staff writer Tom Haydon contributed to this report.