Unless you’ve lived in Lexington, KY for an extended period of time then you just can’t understand what UK basketball means to the fans in the state. When you’re born here, most likely you come into the world with UK blue pumping in your veins. There are 80 year old grandma-fans who will school you on what to do against a matchup-zone, and will tell you the leading scorer of UK’s team in 1971. Without looking it up.
Last night, the fervor of fans came to a head when the team won its 8th national championship. What happened next, however, is where the story truly begins…
The clock ticked zero, and a majority of UK’s campus became flooded with intoxicated fans who just couldn’t hold in their jubilation/insanity and took to the streets of Lexington. No one living in the city was surprised by what occurred last night, as a miniature version of it happened just two nights prior. However, if you took part in the leading Twitter topic that was #LexingtonPoliceScanner, you almost couldn’t believe what you heard…
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During the entirety of my listening to the police scanner, which was buzzing with traffic last night, I overheard these gems:
“Just let the small fires burn out”
“They’re breaking a tree”
“There’s a female wearing blue, bleeding from the leg”
“Hold your traffic, we have a garage on fire”
“She says her boyfriend is breaking things in the house. Male. White. Wearing a UK shirt”
“We’ve got a flash mob, everyone saying they’re going to shoot everybody”
“Just let them shoot their fireworks, aslong as they aren’t at anybody”
I wasn’t alone in listening, as I was enjoying it with 10,000+ who were all basking in the greatness of the event. Which if you were listening was 2 parts ridiculousness, and 1 part hilarity. If you need proof of the entertainment value, here’s what people had to say about the event.
#LexingtonPoliceScanner may be the funniest thing I’ve ever read
#lexingtonpolicescanner. And people wonder why University of KY fans are crazy.
Best twitter feed to read isThe night wasn’t all negative, as you can see one of the riot officers taking time to celebrate in the glory of UK’s 8th ‘ship. Which is an aspect of the riots many people missed; that a lot of the police officers on the scene were UK fans.
(It should be noted that this photo may have been taken Saturday night after the Louisville game, but does it really matter?)
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There were so many angles of the #LexingtonPoliceScanner, but I believe my favorite was the dispatch officer, who was a 2am Twitter celebrity last night. Highlighting her voice, which I have to say didn’t sound as if couches and cars were on fire…
While my favorite might have been the dispatch lady, everyone else really wanted to know more about the partial nude male running around with a propane tank.
It would be a shame if I came out of last night not having learned anything. During the course of the evening you heard the officers mention “code 1”, which instinctively led me to Google. Code 1 stands for arrest, which if you were keeping up with the scanner; there were plenty of code 1’s.
While this has all been good fun, there are many who are disappointed and ashamed of the events that occurred last night. To these people I would say – there are morons everywhere. When you mix the invincible, drunk mindset of a college student with moronity, things like this happen.
For those like me, it was a night of laughing at the ridiculous, and being able to say that the small city of Lexington became – ProjectLeX for just one night.