In the past two weeks, Buffalo Police has searched two houses on W. Northrup Place for drugs.
On Thursday, University Police confirmed students were arrested from 86 W. Northrup Place but declined to comment further because it is a BPD case. On Saturday, Buffalo Police released the names: a team of narcotics detectives arrested Michael Daly, Jared Eder, Cameron Hom, John Marchant and Ethan Mirenberg. They are all 19 years old.
Witnesses saw the students sitting on the street curb in handcuffs while police searched the house. Many said the students are in a fraternity. Chuck Delano, a permanent resident of 76 W. Northrup Place, said they often host loud parties.
Ian Donge, a senior computer science major and resident of W. Northrup Place heard one of the officers say, "I found the money," and saw him walk out of the house holding a safe.
"A year ago, somebody told me [86 W. Northrup Place] was a pot house, where you could just knock and they'd serve you," said Jason Jeffrey, a permanent resident of 48 W. Northrup Place.
Jeffrey lives across the street from 51 W. Northrup Place. He said he usually makes friends with some of the college residents, but the students who lived there were so "obnoxious," he didn't want anything to do with them.
On Sept. 21., UB students and former residents of 51 W. Northrup Place - Andrew Pawluk, Anthony Argiros, Mark Harding and Ruben Abramov - and three others were arrested when BPD found $64,000 in cash, 9 pounds of marijuana, 8 ounces of ecstasy and a half-ounce of cocaine in their home. They have since moved out of the house, according to Jeffrey.
He said for college students, they had very nice cars: BMW, two motorcycles and a brand new truck - which were all forfeited to the police, according to Jeffrey.
They went to court on Thursday, Sept. 27 for an attorney appearance and felony hearing and will return on Oct. 23 at 9:30 a.m. for a felony hearing.
Two students, who asked to remain anonymous, said the arrested students were part of an off-campus fraternity, which is a violation of the UB Student Code of Conduct.
"There was one weekend, I woke up and there were about 10 kids in front of my house, fighting, arguing, all that," Jeffrey said. "And I heard that it was off-campus fraternities having a party and an on-campus fraternity stole their keg. So the kid was running around, finally got eight or nine guys and they went to a house on Northrup."
Jeffrey said he never met the students living in 86 W. Northrup Place. However, he heard rumors about the house before Tuesday's arrest.
Betty Lou Heining lives in 58 W. Northrup Place, across the street from Pawluk, Argiros, Harding and Abramov. She spoke with one of them once and described him as polite and nice-looking.
Since the semester started, Heining said the students in 51 W. Northrup Place have had "loud" and "wild" gatherings.
"Late at night, there would be like a large group of kids congregated there, no more than a party size, coming and going," Heining said. "For a while it was almost every night."
Heining said most of the student residents are well behaved and pleasant to be around. She has lived in her home for 48 years and said recently it became increasingly dangerous - particularly when people began to sell their homes and move to the suburbs.
At night, Heining said she keeps her windows closed. Her house has been broken into several times.
Today, many students rent homes on W. Northrup Place, as well as other streets off Main Street, where UPD does not have jurisdiction. BPD patrols most of the streets surrounding South Campus.
"I'm 34, I've lived on this street since I was 14, and I've seen more stuff happen here than really dangerous places I've had to live before," Jeffrey said. "It's just the kids, all the alcohol and stuff. And finally in the last couple years, you see all this stuff in the paper; they're trying to break the parties up and what not. 'Cause there's a comfortable way of doing things, but these kids, they're not doing it lately."
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