Ohio State National Championship Celebration Gets Rowdy, but Police Prevent Major Incident
ByThe Ohio State Buckeyes ran the table and won the inaugural College Football Playoff National Championship game in Dallas, Texas and so the revelry began in Columbus, Ohio.
According to Cleveland.com, local police near Ohio State University (OSU) had to use pepper spray and tear gas early Tuesday morning after the conclusion of the game. The crowds reportedly gathered around midnight near North High Street and Ohio Stadium.
Some policemen were wearing gas masks and some were on horseback and there were even SWAT officers on the scene. Cleveland.com's Jeremy Pelzer was able to capture some images of the tear gas in the streets.
One student at the scene, OSU sophomore Steven Plamondon, told Pelzer about seeing the tear gas canisters come out.
"As I'm trying to get away, I tripped, threw up on the ground, got hit in the foot with a [tear gas] canister, scrambled back on my feet, ran away some more, threw up some more, and put snow all over my face because it was just terrible," he said.
Around 1:15 a.m. is when the police switched from pepper spray to tear gas, which ended the celebrations in the streets quickly. Per the Columbus Dispatch, only one person was hospitalized after the police started using tear gas to break up the large crowds.
The newspaper reported no major injuries or instances of damage, but there were reportedly more than 10 trash-can fires and a trio of couch fires. In at least one instance, a student tried to help firemen put out a couch fire.
According to ESPN, some revelers who got into Ohio Stadium tore down a goal post, but an OSU spokesman said it was not their permanent one. A responding officer explained that the police's job was not to stop the party from happening, but to ensure it went on without major incident or injury.
"We want them to celebrate," he told ESPN. "We just want them to be safe."