K-Ville sees sweeping security changes in first marquee game since walk-up line chaos

In the first marquee men’s basketball game at Cameron Indoor Stadium since the Carolina walk-up line devolved into a drunk mob, security in Krzyzewskiville looked quite different than what undergraduate fans were used to.  

Last year, ahead of the rivalry game March 3, all students were allowed into K-Ville, regardless of whether they were going into the game. Chaos ensued. 

Students ate signs, threw beer cans, trampled each other and threatened each other with broken-off table legs, The Chronicle reported. Students pushed their way through barricades in a drunken frenzy to try get into the game, trampled line monitors and threatened them with violence. 

Ahead of the primetime matchup battle between Duke and Virginia that brought ESPN’s College GameDay to campus Jan. 19, only students with wristbands for the game were allowed into K-Ville and security was upped, according to co-head line monitor and senior Steve Hassey. 

The entirety of K-Ville was gated off, according to sophomore Bailey Bogle and junior Michael Tan. Bags were also checked at the points of entry, Bogle wrote in a message to The Chronicle. 

“The experience was a million times safer and more pleasant,” Bogle wrote. “Frankly, students who go to K-Ville before games but are not planning to attend the game don't have a reason to limit their alcohol consumption the way those who will be standing up for four+ hours do.”

It is unclear if similar security measures will be employed before the game against North Carolina at Cameron Feb. 20. Bob Weiseman, senior associate director of athletics and athletic facilities, game operations and championships, declined to answer specific questions about security plans. Hassey noted that security plans for the Carolina game will likely be finalized by Feb. 10. 

“It is not good practice to publicize security plans,” Weiseman wrote in an email to The Chronicle. “Athletics in working with the line monitors provided financial and human resources to implement the plan designed and agreed upon by the Line Monitors and Larry Moneta after summer meetings.”

Weiseman told The Chronicle that third-party security contractor Staff-1 Services Group enforced the policy ahead of the Virginia game, assisted by DUPD and the “A-team,” which is led by David Pittman, senior director of student life. Line monitors are also responsible for alcohol enforcement, Moneta wrote in an email to The Chronicle.

Line monitors requested A-team support in K-Ville ahead of the Carolina game last March, but were shot down, The Chronicle reported last year. 

Clay Adams, associate dean of students, met with then co-head line monitor Sara Constand, Trinity '18, in December 2017, when she requested support for alcohol enforcement from the A-team—a group of student, faculty and administration volunteers who Constand said enforce alcohol policy and monitor safety.

Adams denied the request, citing a Bonfire Safety Program document that said their scope was “limited to ensuring the safe and successful execution of an approved bonfire.” 

The Chronicle reported that Constand said that Adams rejected her request for A-team support in alcohol policy enforcement in K-Ville because not enough people would volunteer. When asked if this was true, Adams said in March 2018 that he didn’t remember the specifics of the conversation because it was in “mid-December (2017).”  

The increased security kept things under control for the Virginia game this year, both Tan and Bogle noted. 

Bogle wrote that before last year’s Virginia game she was shoved onto the ground unintentionally by a drunk student and had beer thrown in her hair. 

“It sucks that students behaved poorly and caused this to happen, but the recent security has made the experience better for everyone else,” Bogle wrote.

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