Family members were upset because venue was too small.
A graduation ceremony for nursing students at Howard University ended abruptly and in chaos after angry family members chanted “Let us in!” and pounded on the doors and smashed a window after being locked out when the auditorium hit capacity.
Loved ones of students in the College of Nursing and Allied Health Sciences packed into the Cramton Auditorium in Washington, DC, on Thursday, but not all relatives made it inside the building before the ceremony was abruptly canceled during the keynote address.
Chaotic video footage shows dozens of people standing outside the auditorium chanting, “Let us in! Let us in!” as the ceremony began.
Pictures showed a glass door had been shattered during the commotion as people banged on the doors and tried to push past security to go inside.
“While they were doing the keynote speaker, there was, like, loud banging, even before that, for like 10 minutes straight,” graduate Bria Flowers told NBC Washington. “Just like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.”
School officials told students and their families mid-ceremony that the fire department had come to shut things down.
“Because of the size of the room and because our relatives sometimes do not know how to act, the fire department is now here to shut us down,” Dr. Gina S. Brown, dean of the College of Nursing and Allied Health Sciences, said to a roaring response of boos.
