From time to time we receive inquiries from patrons about an incident involving a jay-walking OSU student that eventually led to some serious rioting.

It all started in December 1963, when Marjorie Cocoziello, an OSU student from Paterson, New Jersey, and her friend each received a citation for jaywalking. By February, Cocoziello still had not paid her $5 ticket. So Columbus Police officers showed up with a paddy wagon at her sorority house and arrested her. This was apparently all the incentive that students – including Cocoziello – needed to engineer mass chaos.

The “jaywalking riot”, 1964

According to reports, after the paddy wagon left at about 5 p.m. to take Cocoziello downtown, students who had gathered at the scene migrated to the intersection of 15th and High, the spot where Cocoziello had received her citation. Students then proceeded to hold up traffic for seven hours by playing the game of Red Rover across High Street; chanting and participating in vandalism, such as cutting trolley cables; and climbing atop buses and setting a bonfire in the middle of High Street. The demonstration disrupted bus routes and the commute home for many people before police were able to re-route traffic.

Meanwhile, another 200 students paraded Downtown to protest at the police station. Seven students – in addition to Cocoziello – were

arrested for disorderly conduct. Two were later suspended from school and five were given probation. Cocoziello was released after 90 minutes in a jail cell and a call to her sorority house. Her bond was set at $13.

1964

The media covering the event then became part of the story. Cocoziello made statements to The Lantern that she was strip-searched at the jail, locked in a darkened cell, and that the jail matron was “cruel.” Later, though, the Chief of Police explained the procedure for booking jaywalking offenders, and refuted Cocoziello’s account that she had been strip-searched. He went on to say that the light had indeed burned out in her cell but was quickly replaced, and the jail matron was one of the nicest ladies you would ever meet. After the investigation, The Columbus Dispatch reproached The Lantern for its account of Cocoziello’s story.

Ultimately, Cocoziello had her day in court, much to the amusement of the onlookers and Franklin County Municipal Court Judge Alan E. Schwarzwalder, who heard her case. He was reported to have said, “After all you’ve been through, I’m not going to charge you a penny” and suspended her sentence, even though he declared her guilty of jaywalking.

To review The Lantern’s coverage of the incident, go to The Lantern Online Archives, which you can find as a link on our home page at go.osu.edu/archives.

Filed by C.N.