NEWS
Police charge 4 in weapons tiff
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by Courtney Johnson
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Police arrested four Madison men early Tuesday morning after a fight occurred on Lakelawn Place involving a machete and a pitchfork.
University of Wisconsin students George Halkias, Matthew Christensen and Jeffrey Schorfheide, and former UW student Justin Baker were arrested and taken to Dane County Jail. Schorfheide, a UW junior, is the photo editor for The Badger Herald.
Baker and Schorfheide have both been tentatively charged with disorderly conduct while armed, while Halkias has been tentatively charged with disorderly conduct and resisting an officer. Christensen was also tentatively charged with resisting.
According to a release from the Madison Police Department, the disturbance began when some people had tried to tear down a large tent outside the Acacia fraternity house. After hearing the commotion, fraternity house residents came outside to investigate.
Mike Hanson, public information officer for the MPD, said he is unsure why there was a tent by the fraternity in the first place.
"Somebody just had it out there, for whatever reason," Hanson said. "[The fraternity members] notice it at 2 a.m., they yell out, they get in a verbal exchange, so Schorfheide and Baker go out with a machete."
When police were approaching the scene, they reportedly heard someone yell, "I just had a pitchfork pulled on me." During the altercation, Schorfheide allegedly had a machete, while Baker had a pitchfork.
According to the MPD, although threats occurred during the encounter, no one was injured as a result. Police officials were able to quickly quell the altercation.
The report also said it appears alcohol played a factor in the incident.
Hanson said it is unclear, based on police information available, whether the people in the tent were affiliated with the fraternity.
Ald. Eli Judge, District 8, whose district includes Lakelawn Place, said increased neighborhood watch efforts, such as the Langdon Street Watch Program, could decrease the occurrence of these types of potentially violent incidents.
"I think that all street-level crime is definitely not something we can accept in this district, or anywhere in the country," Judge said.
Other neighborhoods are currently working on creating their own watch programs, Judge said.
Anonymous (May 2, 2007 @ 2:20am):
ACACIA threw a party, it's something like Night by the Nile. Jesus, our cops do some GREAT INVESTIGATIVE WORK!!
Anonymous (May 2, 2007 @ 3:38am):
This story is somewhat humorous.
- Germain E. Stemme
Anonymous (May 2, 2007 @ 4:37am):
The police don't really care why they had a pyramid tent in the front lawn. They care about the machete and the pitchfork so they took those dorks to jail.
Anonymous (May 2, 2007 @ 9:01am):
"Ald. Eli Judge, District 8, whose district includes Lakelawn Place, said increased neighborhood watch efforts, such as the Langdon Street Watch Program, could decrease the occurrence of these types of potentially violent incidents."
Eli...want to explain how??
Anonymous (May 2, 2007 @ 11:50am):
Mike Hanson is a bit of an idiot. He's always spouting off irrelevant nonsense.
Anonymous (May 2, 2007 @ 1:05pm):
A pitchfork is a weapon? Don't tell the farmers...
Anonymous (May 2, 2007 @ 3:26pm):
Unless ACACIA does their own gardening why do they even have a pitchfork in the first place???
Anonymous (May 2, 2007 @ 4:02pm):
This story is perhaps one of the funniest of the semester. Who carries a pitchfork in urban Madison, Wisconsin. Gotta hand it to the ol' menches at Acacia for that one.
And the story is even funnier because it was one of my old friends who got arrested, and I can hear his exact tone of voice in my head -- "I just had a pitchfork pulled one me...wtf?!?!"
Anonymous (May 2, 2007 @ 7:37pm):
i saw this event and from my perspective it is an exaggeration that the police did anything like "quickly quell the altercation." what really happened was one of the girls told the stupid guys fighting that the cops were coming and the guys split up and went inside. although i am happy the cops showed up to sort things out, i find the description of what the cops did to be a little inaccurate.
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