Three individuals were arrested on Saturday evening — one for assaulting a police officer and two for disorderly conduct — after a crowd of several hundred “juveniles” assembled near 40th, Market, and Walnut streets, according to Penn’s Division of Public Safety.
In a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian, DPS wrote that officers from both the Philadelphia Police Department and the Penn Police Department were present during the Nov. 8 incident. Several fights broke out as officers attempted to “disperse” the groups, whom DPS characterized as “acting disorderly and causing disturbances to businesses in the area.”
The arrests took place during Penn’s Homecoming weekend. According to DPS, the “meetup” stemmed from a social media post calling for individuals to assemble at 40th and Walnut streets. Philadelphia Police inspector DF Pace, told NBC News that a large crowd had accumulated in part due to the football and men’s soccer games that took place at Penn on Saturday.
According to DPS, officers were “injured while they were separating the fights.”
“During the encounter, an unknown male intervened as officers attempted to take an individual into custody and deploy pepper spray. As a result, three officers were exposed to the pepper spray,” a Philadelphia Police spokesperson wrote to the DP.
On Sept. 25, DPS sent a message to the Penn community noting “multiple recent reports” of “groups of young people slapping or striking individuals in the head.” The notice stated that activity was located primarily in the area of 40th to 38th streets, from Market Street to Locust Street.
