Incident Report

Today (9/7/07) N.Y. Ð'- It was quite an interesting day at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Henrietta, New York. What started out with someone's insane protest of a piece of artwork on the campus ended with the accidental shooting of a 3rd year student by a Monroe County Deputy. At 11:10 AM on this sunny Friday morning, a lone male driver made his way onto the RIT campus through the visitor's entrance. The man, Ferdinand Olszewski, Age 43 of 21 Fun St, sped past the information booth and crashed head on into the Sentinel statue. Campus Safety quickly arrived on scene, and forcibly removed the driver from the car. As they held him to the ground awaiting arrival of the Monroe County Sheriff's Department, a mob started to form. Six of Monroe County's finest deputies arrived on scene only being able to help control the crowd that was quickly growing. The problem then escalated as Frederick "Waldo" Hoogenboom, 23, a grad student at RIT, hurled a brick towards the deputies, striking one. Another member of the Sheriff's Department threw his arm into the air, gripping his pistol to fire a warning shot, hoping to bring peace to the growing crowd. As the deputy, who the department wishes to remain unnamed went to fire, he was struck on the shoulder from behind by the immense crowd, and a young woman was shot. Melanie Barbarito, 20, a Fine Arts major from PA, was struck down by a bullet to her left shoulder. At the sound of the gun being fired, the mob immediately hit the ground. A great number of students began running. As 10 New York State Troopers arrived on scene, the Ambulance arrived to bring Miss Barbarito to the hospital. With now more than enough police controlling the situation, the crowd slowly died down.

The driver was immediately taken to the hospital for evaluation, and the brick thrower was detained by the Sheriff's Department. The brick thrower was charged with disturbance of peace, assault