Police use Trojan-horse strategy to bust up loud frat party in Allston

If you invite an undercover cop into your house, then anything in plain view is your fault. If you want the protection of your "castle", then you shouldn't lower the moat to just anyone who shows up at your doorstep. They can't search the place for further evidence (like a stash of pot in your closet or under a mattress) without a warrant after that, but they can seize anything they see you using in the commission of the crime that they're arresting you for (bong, alcohol, etc).

Okay, so what do you recommend? They've arrested the perpetrators, what next? B.U. can de-certify the fraternity I suppose, but to do that they will likely need to determine that the official fraternity apparatus was behind the legal violations, that it was supported by the national organization, etc. Is there evidence of this?

B.U. doesn't own the house, so even if they eject the fraternity, there will still be students independently living in Allston and holding parties. What legal mechanism does the university have other than after the fact punishment? Likewise, what prevention strategy should BPD employ?

Those residents have been there a long time and have complained even longer. There are some years where the students are worse than others, but this has been a problem for a long time down there.

If the penalty is a joke, then the law is a joke.

Mommy and Daddy's precious little BU poopers will sooner or later figure out that if you're going host underage drinking parties, then you'd better keep the noise levels down so no one calls the cops.

I don't know which house you're thinking of, but it's not the one in question. 16 Ashford doesn't have Greek letters over the front door or a couch on the lawn, and it's been occupied by Chi Phi for less than a year. It doesn't have a long history as a big party house, unlike, say, 7 Ashford Court or 52 Ashford. And there are certainly people who have lived in the neighborhood for most of their lives (myself included), long before there were any students at all on Ashford or Pratt.

Community service would be great, especially if the next time they send through a community service crew to pick up the trash in the streets they also remember to COLLECT the trash, instead of leaving it in bags that sit all over the neighborhood for months on end.

i love it when people get on these posts and start spouting about people moving into college neighborhoods. my family built the house i grew up in in 1911. there were no students living in the neighborhood. we were here first and you should respect your neighbors no matter how long they have been there.

Drink all you want, just STFU after 11 PM. Otherwise, I'm calling the President of the School's home number (yes, it CAN be found). Why? Because if I can't sleep, he can't either. :D Frats get shut down REAL fast after that. :DD

Why would you post something like that? You are not only making matters worse for these kids, but that is disrespectful. Plus, those photos do not indicate anything illegal going on, so you are only posting random people on a website. This helps with no argument.

It just redirects to Facebook's home page -- not even an error message or 404 page.

Is that the cops have to respond to these houses if someone calls 911.

Trust me when I say cops would rather be required to actually attend these parties and drink with the students as part of community relations.

And no one is putting them there.

i was a sober college student and i went to a dry campus. some kids drank, but most didn't.

you do a disservice to all young adults by basically saying that they can't be held to any kind of better standards than animal house antics.

a lot of kids drink. a lot of kids party. fine. but they are still responsible for their actions, and they could behave civilized if they wanted to. drink responsibly and the cops don't show up at your parties.

But maybe I'm just getting old.

But I assume the "deleted" post is this one. Here's the deal with anonymous comments: They don't go up right away; they go into a queue where I have to manually mark them for publication (damn spammers ruin everything). Sometimes I don't get to the queue right away, like, I go get something to eat or go cover something where I can't just sit around approving messages. The answer: Get an account and your post will go up automatically, without human intervention.

The police will never drive around looking for parties to break up. They don't want to break up parties, it is that simple. Cops would rather drive around, sit somewhere and read the paper, hide and sleep, talk amongst co-workers etc. Breaking up parties is not on the list of things cops want to do during a shift. If the state legistature came up with a law that said people could be as loud as they wanted to inside a house 24/7, the cops would be the first in line to celebrate the new law.

Familiar with the area? You know every single resident in the area? You are that sure that no one would call in a complaint because the residents and students are on good terms?

From what I read in this article is that a noise complaint came into the address, and the cops knew this address as a place where the residents would shut the door on the police. So they got someone young looking that was already in plain clothes, he was invited in and saw first hand (plain view) illegal drinking and the disturbance.

Im sorry but its one of the crappiest parts of going to an urban school.

May not make any sense, but you're supposed to call 911 for anything requiring a police response, even stuff short of knife attacks.

boo fricking hoo

This editorial just comes off dripping of privilege. "Oh ho! Let the kids be kids and piss off their neighbors! Shouldn't you be out catching murderers!" You don't want to be arrested? Well, don't invite strangers into your party where you're doing illegal things and don't do illegal things and be more considerate of those around you so neither they nor the cops have a reason to come to your front door anyways!

Welcome to real life. Suck it up and stop whining. If you're not 21, don't drink and you won't have to worry about it. Don't do drugs and if you do, don't leave your paraphernalia out in the open at an open-door party. There were about 20 different screw-ups that led to this whole thing being what it was in the end. None of which involve how the cops behaved. Stop displacing the blame and grow up.

PS - The attitude fostered by an opinion piece like this is *exactly* why the cops should do MORE raids just like this.

... that the usual response to people being "shaken by a brazen murder" and have "no sense of security or safety" isn't to smoke up and throw a kegger for 75 of their closest friends.