Each year, Homecoming celebrations send the Kingston community into disarray — and this year was no exception.

Kingston Police statistics

Kingston Police made 33 arrests this Homecoming weekend and nearly doubled the amount of tickets issued in 2016, reaching a total of 330 tickets. 

Chief Gilles Larochelle praised the Kingston Police staff for their efforts over the weekend in a media release on Monday. 

“I am extremely proud of [the Kingston Police’s] efforts to ensure public safety and order, balanced with restraint and appropriate enforcement,” she wrote.

Arrests concerning public intoxication totalled 30 and reports of overcrowding hospital beds at Kingston General Hospital (KGH) generated concern in the community. 

Albert Jin, a member of KGH responding staff, tweeted early Sunday morning, “#QueensHomecoming drunk kids still clogging up ER. Musical chairs with patients’ stretchers to find room to examine acute stroke patient.”

Because of Homecoming drunk party people in ER, our stroke patient was put in the ER hallway. 2 million dead neurons per minute of delay.

— Albert Jin (@Jin_Yongwon) October 14, 2017

The Whig-Standard reported on Monday that the KGH emergency department saw “the most patients it has ever seen” this past weekend and the “majority of patients were people suffering from overdrinking after attending street parties in the University District.”

According to The Whig, KGH admitted 241 patients on Saturday and 223 on Sunday, and had 95 ambulance arrivals on Saturday. 

Members of the Kingston community chimed in on Twitter to reaffirm their disappointment with Queen’s students and praise the work of KGH staff. Among their concerns was broken glass on roads prohibiting emergency vehicle access.

Aberdeen facing north. Would be navigable if it wasn’t for the broken glass on the road. pic.twitter.com/tFDius85t6

— Make It Home YGK (@YGKTraffic) October 15, 2017

Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant, professor in the Department of Political Studies, pointed out the increased open alcohol charges via Twitter. “Queen’s prof and resident of the neighbourhood. I’m sick of this. Disappointed, angry, ashamed. The U and students must do better,” she tweeted. 

Queen’s prof and resident of the neighbourhood. I’m sick of this. Disappointed, angry, ashamed. The U and students must do better https://t.co/2OF3w3VP4w

— E. Goodyear-Grant (@eplusgg) October 15, 2017

Before Homecoming weekend, Principal Daniel Woolf released a statement to all Queen’s students writing, “Poor citizenship or irresponsible and unsafe behaviours can negatively affect peers and members of our Kingston community – so please consider the impact of your actions on others.” 

He continued by encouraging students to refrain from blocking streets, taking up hospital spaces and diverting emergency services. 

On the night of Homecoming, Woolf tweeted he was “deeply unimpressed by those (many not at Queen’s) whose irresponsible drinking has taken away hospital beds from seriously ill patients.”  

And deeply unimpressed by those (many not at Queen’s) whose irresponsible drinking has taken hospital beds away from seriously ill patients.

— Daniel Woolf (@queensprincipal) October 15, 2017

In an interview with The Whig-Standard on Monday, Woolf expressed concern for the potential of future Homecoming celebrations to turn fatal.

“All we can do is continue to take the best possible steps, but I do worry that sooner or later someone is going to die, either a student from overdrinking or somebody as a consequence of not being able to get the urgent care that they need,” he told The Whig. 

Charges for Open Alcohol in line with the Liquor Licence Act amounted to 258 cases this year, a drastic increase from the 90 issued in 2016. 

Kingston officers maintained their social media presences during the day by posting pictures of tickets being pre-filled and individual officer tallies concerning tickets given. 

Alongside alcohol-related charges, Kingston Police received several calls concerning assaults, medical assistance and break-ins. 

Student finds two strangers in his bed on Homecoming

Around 4am on the morning of October 15, Carson O’Sullivan walked into his bedroom to find a naked man in his bed accompanied by a clothed woman, with the items in his room strewn about and the stench of vomit in the air. 

O’Sullivan posted a video he took of the incident on Facebook, where it quickly captured the attention of students. The video was taken down the morning of October 16. 

In a message to The Journal, O’Sullivan wrote that the couple likely entered his University Avenue house through his bedroom window, using a fire escape that reaches the ground level. They used the window to exit his room, so he assumed they entered the same way they left. 

“It took me a couple seconds to realize what I was staring at, but I was completely dumbfounded,” O’Sullivan wrote. “I couldn’t stop laughing and went downstairs to grab my phone to take a video.”

According to O’Sullivan, the female woke up immediately upon his entry into the room. The male, on the other hand, took about 10 minutes to wake up. The girl couldn’t leave without her friend, as she was visiting the male at the Royal Military College (RMC). The two left immediately once he was awake. 

Their identities remain a mystery to O’Sullivan and his housemates, as the duo left without giving their names or an apology for the intrusion. 

“All I really wanted was an apology but he was too incoherent to give me that,” O’Sullivan wrote.

“In hindsight, I should have got his name or ID so he could pay for some of the damages. But at the time it was 4:30 in the morning and all I could think about was sleeping.”

With his house being full with visiting hometown friends and his bedroom smelling of vomit, O’Sullivan spent the remainder of the night at a friend’s house. Because he was unsure of what exactly had happened in his room, he left and returned the next day. 

All in all, O’Sullivan took the events of that morning in stride and maintains a good sense of humour about it all. In his Facebook post he wrote that, “In these situations I feel all you can do is laugh it off, but also take advantage of the opportunity to take a funny video.” 

“Shout out to my good friend Shira for answering her phone at five in the morning and letting me sleep on her floor,” he added.  

O’Sullivan has also started a GoFundMe page to support the purchase of new sheets, a fuzzy blanket and carpet.