An article about the last Saturday’s incident at Elevate appeared in the N.Y./Region section of The New York Times today. The piece starts out as you might expect:

It was well after midnight, and the invitation-only party for Yale University undergraduates was reaching a peak. In the upscale nightclub Elevate, not far from campus, more than 100 students in semiformal attire were on the dance floor as Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” pulsed over the sound system.

Ignoring for a moment the suggestion that Elevate is an “upscale nightclub” (think plastic partitions between bar and dance floor), this seems an accurate depiction of the scene before all hell broke loose. Enter: SWAT team with assault rifles. The article goes on to mention the disturbing events that transpired as a sophomore was tased and others were allegedly assaulted by the abrasive NHPD officers.

But after an unsurprising summary of Yale students’ plans to protest, Mary Miller’s statements about the event, and Mayor DeStefano’s claim that the police used excessive force, the article focuses on the issue of over-crowding:

“Chief Limon was the commanding officer on the scene of a nightclub tragedy in Chicago in 2003,” it said, adding, “Twenty-one people died and hundreds were injured when a panic set off a stampede in a club with the same type of difficult egress at Elevate.”

While there may have been a misunderstanding about Elevate’s capacity, this raises the question of how the police will mount their defense. Will they take up the stance that their arrival was an issue of safety independent of under-age drinking? The article quotes the NHPD as saying the over-occupancy was an “egregious violation.” Let’s just hope they don’t bust in on the Air Sex Championships.