Exclusive: Streaking the library

It’s kind of late and normally I would hold off writing this until later today but I need to write this now while it’s still fresh in my mind and I am still giddy over it. Earlier tonight I witnessed the most unusual things I have seen in my entire life, a group of students streaking through the House Undergraduate Library in front of nearly a hundred cheering classmates.

 

I spend a lot of weeknights at the Undergraduate Library. The library is open all hours but between midnight and 6am, there is a police officer stationed by the front door who makes sure that everyone has a valid student identification. Tonight was not different than any other nights, except that exams begin tomorrow (for undergrads) and there are much more students here than usual.

 

At around five minutes before midnight I trying to finish a reading assignment when I started hearing a lot of commotions outside in the main foyer. Immediately the girls in the next table began giggling, looked at one another, and ran out. Others followed. Ten seconds later, the only ones remaining in the room were myself, a couple of freshmen who looked like they were international students, and one other grad student. Not wanting to miss anything, we too went outside.

 

In the foyer there was an atmosphere of anticipation and confusion. Some students were asking “what’s going on” and others were just looking around waiting. The foyer is two floors high and when I looked up I could see students gathering around the railing on the second floor, many of them were looking down on the ground floor as though the were expecting something to happen. I asked the library clerk, who looked like there was nothing out of the ordinary happening around him, what was up. “They streak the library the night before the first exam.”

 

Oh.

 

As we got closer to midnight, more and more people began looking at their watches, looking around, taking out their cell phones. There were more people running into the library. The police officer was pacing around and talking into his radio.

 

Then it started.

 

It began with the people on the second floor screaming, everyone looked up and saw legs running around. After having completed the “square” on the second floor, the streakers came down the stairs. There were about seven of them, at least one was a woman, and they all had their faces covered with something. By the time they got to the foyer, there were about three rows of students on either side and between the rows the students had opened up a path of about fifteen feet wide. The cheering continued but soon there was a loud gasp coming from spectators on the second when they realized what was about to ensue.

 

The police officer was attempting to make an arrest.

 

The officer, who was coming from the opposite direction as the streakers, ran up into the direct path of the streakers, stopped, straddled, and tried to grab a streaker by wrapping both his arms around him (I assume it was a “him”). That streaker got away. The officer then grab the next streaker. He had a firmer grip on this second streaker but the streaker kept moving and both fell onto the ground, falling two feet in front of me and taking down with them four spectators. Both men broke free of one another, and both ran for the entrance. I believe what happened next was the police officer found a clear path to the entrance while the streaker ran into a cloud of spectators who did not get out of the way quick enough but the officer beat the streaker to the front door and the last many of us saw was the officer standing between the double doors and the metal detectors, blocking the streaker’s exit out of the building, and earning his pay for the evening.

 

The crowd began closing in toward the duo, chanting “let him go, let him go!” Not wanting to contribute to a mob scene, I returned to my books but it was hard to get any reading done. Others in the room were pressing their faces against the windows to see if they could make out what was going on. Others were on the phone. One student said “I have never laughed so hard in my entire life.” Another said "their clothes must be nearby, it's freezing outside." We heard booing from those who had remained to witness the spectacle followed by cheering two minutes later. Some students said they felt sorry for the streaker who was apprehended, there was talk that he got caught because he fell or he was the last streaker and was significantly later than the others.

 

I finally finished my reading and left the library at around fifteen past midnight. In the main foyer, I saw that two additional officers have since arrived. One was debriefing the arresting officer while the other was standing by the door, exactly where I last saw the apprehended streaker. Next to this officer was a student lying on the ground in fetal position, clothed, hands unhandcuffed and his eyes were closed. As I walked by, I looked at him and said, “have a good night.”

 

Neither man responded.