Old Dominion University police say their officers did nothing wrong when they used pepper spray to clear hundreds of rowdy students gathered for a flash mob.
Hundreds of students swarmed the campus library around 10 p.m. Thursday night. They say they just wanted to let off a little steam during final exam week.
"The officers made several attempts to verbally instruct the crowd to leave the building, they were unable to get anyone's attention," said Assistant Chief Paul Midgett.
Within moments of the flash mob, students posted video on Facebook and Youtube.
A scene right out of a motion picture, hundreds of college students storming the campus library during finals week.
"It was ungodly huge," said Ray Bland, an ODU student. "I was surprised this event made it as big as it did."
Bland says the internet is the reason the flash mob became so big.
"I heard about the flash mob over facebook," he said.
Bland says sites like Facebook and Twitter really helped bring flash mob to life.
ODU social media professor, Dr. Liza Potts, says she is not surprised.
"To them, using this techonology is much more of a natural then use phone calls and that sort of thing," she said.
Dr. Potts says students use social media to get their messages out quickly and usually it works to their advantage.
"So many of the students were even holding up their own phones to take video of that event and part of that being in that moment is also capturing that moment."
But Dr. Potts says social media can also work against you.
"To me the negative parts of course or when people can get hurt this way."
Even though no one was seriously injured there was some damage to the library. Some students like Bland say things were a little chaotic.
"There were some people that were out of hand, this is college. People need to understand how to act like an adult."
Hundreds of students swarmed the campus library around 10 p.m. Thursday night. They say they just wanted to let off a little steam during final exam week.
"The officers made several attempts to verbally instruct the crowd to leave the building, they were unable to get anyone's attention," said Assistant Chief Paul Midgett.
Within moments of the flash mob, students posted video on Facebook and Youtube.
A scene right out of a motion picture, hundreds of college students storming the campus library during finals week.
"It was ungodly huge," said Ray Bland, an ODU student. "I was surprised this event made it as big as it did."
Bland says the internet is the reason the flash mob became so big.
"I heard about the flash mob over facebook," he said.
Bland says sites like Facebook and Twitter really helped bring flash mob to life.
ODU social media professor, Dr. Liza Potts, says she is not surprised.
"To them, using this techonology is much more of a natural then use phone calls and that sort of thing," she said.
Dr. Potts says students use social media to get their messages out quickly and usually it works to their advantage.
"So many of the students were even holding up their own phones to take video of that event and part of that being in that moment is also capturing that moment."
But Dr. Potts says social media can also work against you.
"To me the negative parts of course or when people can get hurt this way."
Even though no one was seriously injured there was some damage to the library. Some students like Bland say things were a little chaotic.
"There were some people that were out of hand, this is college. People need to understand how to act like an adult."
