Nuisance Party Arrest on University Drive

A third Kent State University student has been charged in connection with a nuisance party on University Drive since classes resumed for the fall semester.

Kent Police charged MacKenzie M. Mitchell, 19, of 840 Morris Road, with failure to disperse from a nuisance party, an unclassified misdemeanor, early Sunday morning.

Officers were breaking up a nuisance party at 125 University Drive shortly after 1 a.m. Sunday when Mitchell refused to leave and was charged, according to police.

The psychology student at Kent State is the third student to be arrested on University Drive this semester in relation to a loud party.

In September, police arrested Nicholas S. Elder, 19, of 222 University Drive, and charged him with holding a nuisance party, which also is an unclassified misdemeanor. The Pennsylvania native is a sophomore at Kent State University.

And in August police shut down a nuisance party at 206 University Drive and charged a tenant of that house, also a Kent State student, with a nuisance party violation.

Nuisance party violations across the city are up in 2012 compared with the previous two years, KentWired reported Tuesday.

So far 63 nuisance parties have been reported this year compared with 14 in 2011 and 34 in 2010, according to KentWired.

Kent Police Lt. Jim Prusha told KentWired the department is more strictly adhering to the nuisance party law.

"In the past, officers have been a little more lenient than what our procedure actually says they should be … it kind of got a little lax,” Prusha told KentWired. “It’s really a no-nonsense kind of thing. If you go there, and this is what’s happening, it’s a ticket.”