STUDENTS ambushed firefighters and pelted them with glass bottles and eggs from a sixth-floor window in an early morning attack.
A crew went to the Exchange Works, Arundel Street, Sheffield, after an emergency glass panel was smashed to raise the alarm.
When they arrived firefighters found it was a false alarm and were bombarded with wine bottles, beer bottles and eggs. Crew manager Mark McCreesh branded the prank "utter stupidity" and said it could have had fatal consequences.

full story

http://www.rotherhamtoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=85&ArticleID=1008702


I bet their parents are really proud of them. :loopy: :loopy: :loopy:

umm how do they know they were students...? I see this at a sad oppertunity to attack "them evil brainless yobby students"

Might have something to do with the fact that the Exchange Works building is now student accomadation.

Bet this would have had more attention if it were dogs or cats that were pelted !

I used to live at exchange last year and it was dreadful, drunken idiots set off fire alarms at least once a week, with evacuations happening at 4am sometimes.

Nothing was ever done about it, people just carried on being idiots, and the rest of us who were trying to sleep (not very studenty i know! but im not your average student!)

Something should really be done about it because there is quite a few cctv cameras in and around the building.

Shameful really, gives students a bad name, which really winds me up.

Also even more important, they could be needed on other call outs, and instead,they waste their time at exhange.

Moronic cretins!!!!!
I would suggest imcreasing the CCTV camera surveillance and anyone caught behaving in this manner be booted out and kicked off their course and given a fine that hurts.

Appalling loutish behaviour. I hope the police are investigating this incident? Let's hope they can identify the criminals and prosecute them. A stiff sentence might act as a deterrent.

It's not only idiotic to set off fire alarms without good cause, but to attack fire-fighters with missiles defies belief.

Lets just hope their little student flat really does catch fire one day, and the fire fighters tell them to bugger off and leave them in there.

Shame the firefighters cant actually refuse to come out! I think i would have been tempted to if i'd have been them.

I would have thought this would have generated more disgust by now.

What if the subject had been "student nurses pelted by....

Whatever; anyone treated in this way in the execution of a public service should expect better.

What if your house was burning but the crews were en-route to a prank such as this? What if a family member were roasted alive because of a student laff?

Kick them off their course. Give them a sweeping-up job in a fast food emporium as a punishment.

P U N I S H M E N T ?
This is probably their aspiration ! :rant:

I think it would be a good idea to kick them off their course, would definatley be a reality check anyway!

Informing their parents of what they got up to whilst "studying" would also make a mark too.

I don't know why anyone is surprised at this happening, sadly the stoning of emergency crews is happening all too often, but of course it will be put down as "another student prank"

The student idiots who are perpetratrating this kind of attack should be charged with ABH, then let them crawl back to mummy and daddy and explain why they have wasted their time and money setting them up in uni, bearing in that if they are convicted it will affect any employment they apply for in the future.

Yeah I know another rant about students....and this one is justified

It's a shame the firemen (am I allowed to say firemen?) can't direct their hoses at the scum and blast them 40 foot in the air.

Sadly, there'd be a queue of lawyers stretching to Lands End (albeit in bright yellow Macintoshes) waiting to defend the scums' rights.

Go on firemen, you know it makes sense. To see the little dicks rush off home to mummy, absolutely sodden, with the water dripping off their Burberry caps, would be great.

Mmm, so these are the same people who plead poverty because of the debts they have to build up to get a decent education.....

Not so sorry for you now I'm afraid.

Loopy.

Ousetones,

I was just going to suggest that ! [honest , Guv. ] but one way to answer the lawyers .....etc...... would surely be to say that the firemen were so distracted by the scummy behaviour that the hoses were accidently turned on the poor , unfortunate scumbags.
Even if the police bothered to arrest the firemen and charge them , surely , even in modern Britain , no jury would convict the fireman ? Oh , I don't know , though .......
They , the firemen , would certainly be public heroes !

To make sure the offenders are easy to identify a spot or two of dye in the hose water would make them easy to spot.:P

Originally posted by Don_Kiddick
full story

http://www.rotherhamtoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=85&ArticleID=1008702


I bet their parents are really proud of them. :loopy: :loopy: :loopy:

Nick the b*****ds! Throw them off the course, send them home without their tuition fees!

Any other brain dead students thinking about doing something similar would think twice!

If no one ever appears to get punished, then there is no deterrent!

Had it been a block of flats in a Council Estate I have no doubt that the Police would have been out in full riot gear.

The Universities in the City are, in my opinion, gaining a hell of a lot of power and not actually behaving very responsibly. This sort of thing would be an opportunity to demonstrate to the City that they take seriously the issues of students living in large groups in the place.

It may seem rather unfair but a blanket fine on the accomodation concerned, with the proceeds going to a Firefighter's charity, might encourage better behaviour in future.

And if the fine is withheld by a student, easy peasy, they don't graduate.

And if you want to make it fairer for the students not involved, then grass up the perpetrators.

These people are frequently guests in the City - the Universities are making a fair amount of money from them, so perhaps they need to take on board some corporate responsibility for their 'raw materials'.

Joe

Originally posted by JoePritchard
It may seem rather unfair but a blanket fine on the accomodation concerned, with the proceeds going to a Firefighter's charity, might encourage better behaviour in future.

When I was at Uni' (in a "Hall of Residence") this tactic was used, a "donation" was made to a fire-fighters charity out of our breakage deposit every time a false alarm went off.

Strangely, the culprits were quite often "found".

If someone had been stupid enough to assault a fire-fighter, I'm sure the "donation" would have been a lot higher, and the perpetrator would have definitely been “found”.

Of course, the accommodation blocks were university owned back then, so ultimately you could get thrown off the course too, don't know how that stands these days with all (OK most of) the accommodation being privately owned.

we used to have a fine for the floor that set of the alarm if it wasn't required.
But with only 12 people to a floor (6 on the other side) it wasn't that difficult to find the culprit.

Re: the fireman getting bombarded by students.

This sort of things seems to go round in cycles. A minority of students (usually after a night out drinking) find it funny to set fire alarms off in various halls of residence. This is the first time I’ve heard of firemen being pelted with bottles. I know the Kingdom night club were thinking of stopping student nights on Wednesdays because of persistent vandalism in the toilets.

The Student’s Union take these incidents very seriously, and if the culprits are found, disciplinary action will be taken.

Well the police ought to be in there interviewing every single person until they have got all of them involved.

They should be taken to court and really taught a lesson. It is totally unacceptable behaviour, but from people who really should know better!

Behaviour such as this should lead to an automatic dismissal from their course just as everyone has said.

And to make sure they really learn their lesson they should be sent to work with the firefighters, (un-paid of course) do their training and attend some real fires and see what real work is all about! And how totally irresponsible, dangerous and outright disgusting their behaviour is.

It's not that long ago a young girl died because the fire crew nearest to her house was called out on a false alarm so a fire crew had to travel from further afield and didn't get there in time.

These idiots make me sick.

I never understand why the police are called to protect the firefighters. Surely call them to arrest those throwing everything.

For me it should be an automatic prison sentence for those old enough to understand!

typical student behaviour - the future of our nation.... yeah right.

we get them at work, half of them don't know what day it is

Originally posted by stevie1957
. A minority of students (usually after a night out drinking) find it funny to set fire alarms off in various halls of residence.

The Student’s Union take these incidents very seriously, and if the culprits are found, disciplinary action will be taken.

What, they're given lines or something? 'I must cut out the shandy as I'm obviously not the big boy I thought I was'.

Or, 'Throwing empty pizza boxes at Fireman Sam is not big and it's not clever. Mummy might call the local bobby'.

X 20.

That's a bit harsh, isn't it?

Certainly in the Halls if a false alarm results in the firebrigade being called due to malicious behaviour then a £500 fine is charged to the offender, and that's donated to the FB by the University.

SY Fire Service are one of the only forces in the country not to levy a charge themselves, back home the fire service charge £500 for each false call out, which is then given to the firefighters who responded to the call, it's more if it's a commercial alarm.

Students like this should get kicked out of Uni, and flung out of society!

Originally posted by Ousetunes
It's a shame the firemen (am I allowed to say firemen?) can't direct their hoses at the scum and blast them 40 foot in the air.
Honest guv, I was sure he was on fire!! :)
To see the little dicks rush off home to mummy, absolutely sodden, with the water dripping off their Burberry caps, would be great.
Errr... aren't you confusing students with chavs? Although I suppose the two aren't mutually exclusive... :)

is it not just the case that 'students' are being blamed because they are an identifiable group of people? if they were a group of drunken post office staff members, do you think the story would mention it? it would just be 'some people'.

if they were a group of drunken post office staff members, do you think the story would mention it?

"Post office staff ambushed firefighters and pelted them with stamps and passport application forms from a sixth-floor window in an early morning attack."

Sorry, that amused me for a while :)

Originally posted by LL200
is it not just the case that 'students' are being blamed because they are an identifiable group of people?
I guess.... I just hate generalisations about students. I was a student for 3 years, and my girlfriend was a student for 5 years. Neither of us associated ourselves with this minority of scumbags who would do things like that. We'd do our best to get away if anyone near us was being aggressive or giving anyone trouble. It's just the loud obnoxious ones that you tend to hear about, and we all get tarred with the same brush.

P.S. I'm not aiming any of these comments at forum members, just the general 'impression' of students among the populace.

Has the university raised any comments on the issue? It amazes me the way they seem to have such a lenient attitude towards the mindless acts of thier students.
Whilst living on harcourt road I regulaly had to phone up the accomadation dept due to sharing a back yard with one of thier propertys for a few years. maybe geoff could ask them for a statement regarding the behaviour mentioned in this thread, let them know that us ordinary folk are miffed off with it.

When reporting any news , a balance has to be struck , surely ?
If you were too sensitive not to mention groups by name , then every single report would have to begin , " A group of persons yesterday ..... ". Not only would this be boring and bland but in some cases be counter-productive to what you wanted to convey. For example , if you wanted to warn people to stay away from a certain area because football hooligans were expected , then it wouldn't help much to say , " People are advised to watch out for a certain group of people who ........" !
On the other hand , how can you be too specific , unless you know all the people involved ? When newspapers ....etc.......say , "Students yesterday ......" or "Pensioners will tomorrow..... " Most people over the age of five realise you don't mean EVERY student or EVERY pensioner.
Yes , the newspapers DO mention other groups specifically in reports , not just students.

I think it's disgusting that people can treat the people who save lives every day in this way.

I have to confess (at only 17) I'm terrified at the prospect of my future - these people are our future doctors, teachers, lawyers. It's so worrying!

How much motivation would that give you to go out and save people if every week there was an attack on you for doing a job many people dare not do?

I'd like to see those students go to a burning building and drage people out!

Utter prats! :rant:

And yes! they should be kicked off the course and given a criminal record. I can't imagine what my parents would do if they packed me off to uni and I wasted it all by doing something so idiotic!

You're taking me wrongly, Fareast. Obviously if talking about a group of students, it's fine to refer to them as such. But look at the title of this thread. "Students again!"

In other words, "Students are always doing this kind of thing." It reinforces stereotypes, and attitudes of "I hate students".

It's very real; I'm not exaggerating. I've been accused of all sorts of things, and beaten up, just for being a student. But I was never any trouble to anyone. It's as bad as being accused of being a one-dimensional sex-obsessed pervert just because I'm a man, which happened on another forum.

these people almost certainly aren't our future teachers, doctors and lawyers. They are most likely our future low/middle management, shelf stackers and door to door salesmen.

Originally posted by RichD
You're taking me wrongly, Fareast. Obviously if talking about a group of students, it's fine to refer to them as such. But look at the title of this thread. "Students again!"
In other words, "Students are always doing this kind of thing." It reinforces stereotypes, and attitudes of "I hate students".
.

I posted the thread, Rich. It was never my intention to give that impression, I apollogise for that.
Your interpretation does sound like you have become sensitised to student-type issues.
I have also been a student - school, college, & 3 plus years as a student nurse.
I too used to be appalled at the naughty-sexy-student-nurse image portrayed in the media.
I didn't live in student digs with the others - I was appalled at their behaviour on the odd occasion I stayed over when I missed the last bus home. In retrospect, and with my experience, they deserve the image. :roll:

Erm, Cyclone, what have you got against
Originally posted by Cyclone
...low/middle management, shelf stackers and door to door salesmen.
Bit of a generalisation init ?

RichD

Yes , sorry about that------I didn't really take much notice of the original subject title and , yes , it does seem to be implying what you say.
I shouldn't think that students are any worse behaved than any other group of young people in the U. K. , say between 18 and 21. However , in this day and age , to be honest , that's not saying a lot ! Certainly , I bet the vast majority of students just get on with life and work ------but a couple of points.
When people hear the word , "student " they , perhaps ,still have an outdated vision of undergrads cycling through Oxford and Cambridge , or whatever , so they are more shocked when some of them behave loutishly.
Unfortunately , we all " belong " to various groups and we all get tarred with the same brush as the most extreme members of that group.I'm in the " Pensioner " group and I bet you're thinking , " Listen to that silly old b*****d sounding off again " ----but that doesn't mean all pensioners are silly old b*****ds.

Just tried to alter the title to
Firemen ambushed & pelted with missiles by Students

But it won't let me do it :(

Originally posted by foo_fighter
Erm, Cyclone, what have you got against

Bit of a generalisation init ?

nothing against those people (except salesmen).
My point was that the students (this minority) probably aren't the hard working types who are going to pass degrees in medicine or law, if they pass their degree at all.

I cant believe students behave like this!!!! Yes they get drunk and fall over, but this sort of thing is unheard of.....

Which University students are these we refer to, or is a mixed University accommodation block?

Originally posted by goldenfleece
Which University students are these we refer to, or is a mixed University accommodation block?

I bet everyone is assuming they are from Hallam University.

Originally posted by nick2
I bet everyone is assuming they are from Hallam University.

Check out:

http://www.shu.ac.uk/services/facilities/accommodation/uniself.html

University Partnership schemes
These residences are managed by private landlords, in partnership with Sheffield Hallam University.
Archways
Cavendish House
Charlotte Court
The Courtyard
Domino/Egerton/Headford House
Elliot House
Exchange Works [ <--- ]
...

So yes, it appears that they probably are at SHU. Not sure the relevance though as you get these small pockets of mindless idiots at every University.

PS. Before anyone thinks I was bored enough to spend hours trawling through both Uni's web sites, I found this info in seconds thanks to Google ("exchange works" inurl:shu.ac.uk)

Originally posted by Geoff
University Partnership schemes
These residences are managed by private landlords, in partnership with Sheffield Hallam University...
...Exchange Works...
Hopefully since this is a partnership scheme the relevant uni' will be able to exert some pressure on these individuals...

...and the other one will be able to convince it's students not to follow suit.

Kick 'em out of their flat,uni and Sheffield!

Let them go to another City/town to 'study' if they are going to behave like this.

surely the Police should check the cctv tapes and get them chanrged. I'm sure a caution or a criminal record may sober them up quickly.

I know its always gone on but I cannot understand why morons always feel its funny to set fire alarms off.

As a former student I feel students need to be brought down to earth and made to understand realities of life and how their actions can effect others. As a student its easy to not register with ordinary life and treat the whole thing as a sort of holiday. You are often completely seperate and out of contact with day to day society.

I think some sort of vocational break or work break within the 3 years would benefit everyone.

Finishing studies and then having to get a job and deal with day to day life is one of the scariest things you can face.

some sort of break and time spent in real life would I believe make people more determined to study harder and plan ahead more. You get hardly any decent advise about working life through your education and you never realise what it will be like until you have to start work.

Been too busy to view the forum lately, so only just read this thread.

Put the spoilt morons in the ring - one on one - with the firecrews involved. Three rounds, (though I doubt they'd last 30 seconds), and the survivors polish fire appliances every weekend all weekend for the next year. That is after being kicked out of uni first of course.

i know when I was at Sheffield University halls in 98/99, we occasionally had the fire alarm go off, normally due to burnt toast or such like, never as a prank, and every time this happened the block responsible was fined the cost it would take for the firecrew to come out, taken out of the communal deposit. Whether students these days aren't as respectful as they were back then or what I don't know, but for them to attack the firemen, they must be a bunch of ****wits. I've noticed there does appear to be a big differencve between students of 6/7 years ago and now, would love to know the reason. Maybe as students have to pay so much for uni these days it is only the well off that can afford to go, and they go wild and cause trouble as soon as they are let loose from parental responsibilty. It is a shame, but as said many time you can't tar all students with the same brush.

Its nice to put people in catagories so we can tar them all with the same brush though, isn't it. We do it all the time - football hooligans, muslims, chavs, gypsies, students, immigrants, gays, 'men'.

It means we can start such pointless threads as "why do all men.." or "why are all gays..." so that one person can go "ah yes, but not all chavs/immigrants/footbal fans are like that" and another can go "sure but in my experience they are" and someone else can go "well my mum used to work with students/gypsies/gays" and they're actually ok".

After reading this thread I think I'll go and mindlessly put some lives at risk. I'm obviously not living up to my reputation as a drain on the city and a no-hope general annoyance to the world.

Tee hee, just realised how funny that rant looks with my signature at the bottom of it :)

I wonder if any of the culprits have read, will read this thread & like to comment or offer up an explanation for their behaviour?

:D

Originally posted by Don_Kiddick
I wonder if any of the culprits have read, will read this thread & like to comment or offer up an explanation for their behaviour?

:D

Don't be daft Don, most of them will still be asleep at this time of day, and judging from past experience they will be too ashamed to reply now that they have sobered up. :|

I am appalled - especially from students -

Did they find the sodden twerps and arrest them ?

Hope they get their just desserts ...

You might like to check this one out:

http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37862

MOD: threads merged

Originally posted by pdrnsf
I used to live at exchange last year and it was dreadful, drunken idiots set off fire alarms at least once a week, with evacuations happening at 4am sometimes.

Nothing was ever done about it, people just carried on being idiots, and the rest of us who were trying to sleep (not very studenty i know! but im not your average student!)

Something should really be done about it because there is quite a few cctv cameras in and around the building.

Shameful really, gives students a bad name, which really winds me up.

Also even more important, they could be needed on other call outs, and instead,they waste their time at exhange. that's halls for you... Student halls are terrible places to live in.
Places of deborchery, stupidity and it's bloody expensive !
Put students in houses... that'll teach them !
It taught me for sure... Still does ;)

so like Exchange => pull it down.
the Forge => pull it down.
Charlotte smegging court => pull it down.

Originally posted by Ousetunes
What, they're given lines or something? 'I must cut out the shandy as I'm obviously not the big boy I thought I was'.

Or, 'Throwing empty pizza boxes at Fireman Sam is not big and it's not clever. Mummy might call the local bobby'.

X 20.

That's a bit harsh, isn't it?

Pulls a stern face.....

:mad: <----- stern face

Young man! It was a little bit more than pizza boxes they were pelting the firemen with......

I like the way you make up your own question and then answer it. Shades of Arthur Scargill.

Your reply appears to trivialise an all too common nasty incident.

Originally posted by Captain_Scarlet
that's halls for you... Student halls are terrible places to live in.
Places of deborchery, stupidity and it's bloody expensive !
Put students in houses... that'll teach them !
It taught me for sure... Still does ;)

so like Exchange => pull it down.
the Forge => pull it down.
Charlotte smegging court => pull it down.

Can I just point out - most students do live in houses. Those halls must either be hallam uni first year residences or really really expensive posh flats where they change your lightbulbs for you, where the majority of students couldn't dream of being able to afford to live, even if they wanted to, which the vast majority of them don't.

I am a student and I live in a real house with lots of 'character' (**** plumbing and damp, hehe). I contribute to the local community and look after my property. I keep the noise to a reasonable level and get on well with my neighbours. I park my car responsibly and have NEVER thrown ANYTHING at a fireman.

Originally posted by kathythebean
Can I just point out - most students do live in houses. Those halls must either be hallam uni first year residences or really really expensive posh flats where they change your lightbulbs for you, where the majority of students couldn't dream of being able to afford to live, even if they wanted to, which the vast majority of them don't.

I am a student and I live in a real house with lots of 'character' (**** plumbing and damp, hehe). I contribute to the local community and look after my property. I keep the noise to a reasonable level and get on well with my neighbours. I park my car responsibly and have NEVER thrown ANYTHING at a fireman. Same here...
Student, house, no noise, no projectile throwing.

But almost everyone I know live in halls, most of them regret it, and it costs a bomb for a badly built flat with idiots setting off alarms at 3 in the morning. Plmus you gotta share with random wa***rs.

I wouldn't move out of Meersbrook even if I was given a room in halls.

I for one hated the student halls I lived in. While it was a good way to meet people and I did make some good mates, I have never met such a high percentage of ******* in one place. I found that the worst tended to be the ones just out of school - mostly those from smallish towns, or villages who together had the group mentality of 5 year olds. Living alone without mummy and daddy there they really just acted like children.

I'm still surprised about this though - unless the papers exaggerated this is more an attack then student stupidty.

OT I know, but at Aston uni in Brum most 1st and final year students used to live in halls.
There were a few firealarms from burnt toast, but no real problems, and it was a great way to meet a whole bunch of people in the 1st year who were in the same situation as you (ie gone to uni, don't know anyone yet).

What are the Aston halls like? I'll be staying in them in a few months. Do they get out the best linen for the 'paying guests'?

I got a laugh out of the Hallam Uni list of residences. It turns out one of them is near where I live; I thought it was some kind of seriously underfunded hostel judging by the state of the place! There's a pizza box mountain out the back and it looks nothing short of instututional.

Don't they have wardens in the bigger residences? Or am I showing my age? :)

Exchange works is indeed for Hallam first years. I am also a first year student at Hallam and live in halls just down the road from Exhange... our fire alarms cannot be set of manually - we have heat sensitive detectors in our bedrooms and kitchens, smoke sensitive ones in the corridors (this is because we are allowed to smoke in our rooms)...

the fire alarm regularly goes off but everyone ignores it... I did until one day my neighbours flat set on fire... we managed to put it out ourselves but the alarm didn't go off until the smoke reached the corridor as the heat hadn't reached the level of a blazing inferno. It made me feel fairly uncomfotable about the safety of my halls...

Fire brigade have only turned up once to our halls and that was because we had a foreign security guard who couldn't understand the meaning of "no fire, just burned toast"...

Our system is better than exchange works' as the fire brigade are not automatically alerted when an alarm goes off, but only once the cause has been investigated...

Worrying that nobody takes a blind bit of notice of the alarm until it has been going off for more than 10minutes continuously...