Social media contributed to Friday night’s Halloween riot at Riverwalk Townhomes according to Greenville Police Chief Hassan Aden.  About 3,000 people showed up at the complex late in the evening as police patrolled the downtown area.

The evening began as a cookout for the residents of the neighborhood that grew in numbers as people used social media to invite others.  As the evening progressed a huge crowd fueled by alcohol consumption became unruly and began to do damage to property.

An ECU transit bus was caught in the middle of the crowd and became damaged as partiers bashed windows and jumped on the roof.  Cell phone video caught people in the crowd chanting “tip that bus”.  Other video shows cars being bashed.

Aden said about 50 officers arrived to disperse the crowd and help a young man who had been injured.  At that point some in the crowd starting throwing rocks and bottles at the officers.  He says the police had no choice but to use chemical munitions, a form of tear gas, to disperse the large group.

“The crowd remained confrontational and actually at one point advanced on the police contingent still throwing rocks and bottles”, Aden said on Monday at a news conference.

Greenville Third District City Councilperson Marion Blackburn appeared on a news clip on WITN TV on Monday questioning the police using chemical munitions.  “Nobody wants to hear that tear gas was used in their neighborhood and that’s very upsetting to me,” said Blackburn.  “And that things were at that state tells me that we have to be prepared in a different way to make sure this never happens again.”

Aden says preparation was not the issue.  “There was nothing that caught us off guard here.  The only piece is how social media contributes to the quick growth in numbers and that’s what happened”, he said.

Five people have been arrested.  They are:

Zachary Tanner, 19, of Matthews-  Felony to incite riot, assault with a deadly weapon on a government official and failure to disperse

Noah Sonne, 20, of Greenville – failure to disperse and resisting arrest, delay and obstruct

Elijha Robinson, 19, of Greenville- failure to disperse and resisting arrest, delay and obstruct

Stephen Ceperich, 22, of Glen Allen, Va.- public disturbance and failure to disperse

Evan Shimaller,   of Wilmington-  failure to disperse and resisting arrest, delay and obstruct

Police are still reviewing their body cameras and Aden says more arrest will most likely be made.