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Anyone in the vicinity of the North Village of Westwood on Saturday would likely have heard the noise from the rowdy crowds out celebrating.

As a senior, I was particularly inclined to get out and join the sporadic 8-claps and incessant cheering that filled the night after witnessing UCLA beat USC in football for the first time in my college career.

Rumors of a Landfair block party made their way to the Glenrock soiree I was attending, so I headed down to see what the fuss was about.

Sadly, what I know will remain in my mind as one of the most exciting days as a Bruin sports fan quickly became memorable for a different reason.

When I reached the corner of Landfair and Roebling avenues, the street party, which had started hours earlier with what UCPD reported as up to 2,000 people in attendance, had turned into a bonfire started by papers and fed by what witnesses reported to be four couches.

Witnesses told me the blaze had been going for 45 minutes when I arrived at around 1:45 a.m.

Members of the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity began to try to extinguish the flames, amid flying glass bottles and slurs directed toward police, who were camped out at the top of Strathmore Drive and Landfair Avenue.

Apparently I had missed the fun part.

Soon after I had arrived at the scene, police officers dressed in riot gear began walking down Landfair Avenue toward the dying fire, telling students to get off the streets. They marched down Landfair Avenue in a line that spread the width of the street, and with little warning began firing rubber bullets.

Amid the loud pops of officers’ guns, students scrambled to find refuge in the closest apartment building, myself among them, while others simply turned and ran.

The reasoning behind the seemingly bizarre nature of the police behavior – allowing for both a party and a fire to rage, only moving in when the crowd and fire had petered out – has still not been clarified.

I quickly found refuge between two buildings on Landfair Avenue and made my way into an unfamiliar apartment courtyard.

From there I interviewed Claudia Sevilla, a fourth-year biochemistry student who had been hit by a rubber bullet.

Sevilla was on crutches and could not get out of the line of fire in time.

She was the only student I talked to who had actually been hit, but the students crowding around that Landfair Avenue apartment were certainly angry, and most just wanted to return home.

We were then ushered into the nearest apartment doorway by one of the riot police officers who climbed the stairs into the 638 Landfair Avenue apartment complex.

We spent the next 45 minutes trying to figure out when we would be able to leave, until the police finally lowered their guns and allowed students to exit the building.

I met up with friends who had come with me to report on the action.

One friend had seen the wrong side of a police baton.

Another had been pushed against a car while attempting to leave the scene.

What had started out as an exhilarating celebration ended in plain disappointment, in both my fellow students and police tactics.

Glass bottles and burnt couches are not my idea of a good time – nor are rubber bullets or police batons.

E-mail Mishory at jmishory@media.ucla.edu.