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THE UNION LEADER, JANUARY 20, 1999
STUDENT ACQUITTED OF RIOT IN PSC ‘SPRING FLING’ CASE
By PAULA TRACY, Union Leader Staff
HAVERHILL – A former Plymouth State College student charged with the most serious crimes stemming from a May 1 melee was acquitted on all charges yesterday by a Grafton County jury. Robert Marrocco Jr., 22, of Reading, Mass., was found innocent on charges of riot, resisting arrest and simple assault on a police officer in connection with the off-campus incident during the traditional “Spring Fling” weekend.
More than 80 police officers from across the state were called in to break up the gathering of close to 1,000 students on Russell Street, apparently angered by college and town bans on parties that weekend. Marrocco was charged with inciting the crowd into action, including bottle throwing at police, trying to attack a police officer who was arresting him and resisting that arrest. He claimed he was only trying to get the crowd to do “the wave” and that police attacked him viciously and beat him.
Yesterday, he and his parents expressed relief at the outcome of the trial. “This should have been handled out of court as far as the outcome,” said Robert Marrocco, Sr. “and he’s not going back to PSC,” from which he was suspended as a result of the incident. The family’s attorney, P. Scott Bratton, said the state was unwilling to negotiate the case out of court and wanted a trial on all the charges. He added that PSC “convicted him before his trial.” Members of the 12-member jury declined to speak about their findings after two and a half hours of deliberations, yesterday.
Of the more than 20 students arrested in connection with the incident, including individuals charged with throwing bottles at police and their cruisers, Marrocco faced the most serious count of riot, a Class B felony punishable up to seven years in jail. Police allege he was the one person who was standing in front of the crowd, whipping them into a frenzy and sparking the confrontation.
But to get a conviction Judge James D. O’Neill III told jurors they had to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Marrocco acted purposely with an objective; that he acted simultaneously with others; and engaged in tumultuous behavior which subjected the public to risk or alarm. In his defense, Marrocco took the stand and in tears, argued that he was trying to get the crowd to do “the wave,” as a crowd might do at a sporting event. And he said he never threw a single bottle at police.
But Grafton County Attorney Kenneth P. Anderson told the jury to consider the context of the scene in its deliberations. “He wasn’t trying to get them to do ‘the wave’ and you know that. He was whipping them up and trying to them into this confrontation with authority,” Anderson said.
The last witness in the trial yesterday was Plymouth Police Sergeant Aaron Wayne Comeau. He took the stand as a rebuttal witness and described a man he believed to be Marrocco out in front of the crowd of hundreds of youths lifting his hands into the air while bottles flew at police. Comeau said he saw State Trooper David S. McCormack remove Marrocco from the front of the crowd and that during the effort, he witnessed Marrocco spin around and grab at the trooper’s legs. It was at that point, he said, the trooper used his “PR 24” or police baton to get Marrocco down on the ground to make the arrest. It was not long after this that police, then numbering only 20, retreated from the scene, only to come back with about 80 officers in full riot gear more than an hour later to break up the gathering.
On cross-examination by defense attorney Bratton, Comeau said he believed the man he saw in front of the crowd, whipping it up was wearing a red hat, not the black hat Marrocco insisted he wore during the incident.
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