King’s College student, mother killed in fatal Salem Township crash

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Penn State Wilkes-Barre students learn stress buster skills

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; A South River Street family whose front window was broken over the Halloween weekend by a costumed Wilkes University student with a knife will not press charges.</p><p>The student came forward over the weekend and admitted he was the person pictured in a home surveillance video, Samantha Chicchetti said Tuesday.</p><p>&#8220;The guy apologized and has already paid for the window,&#8221; she said.</p><p>She declined to identify him only to say he lives on campus and was attending an off-campus party at one of the houses near hers in the 300 block of South River Street.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;re still keeping an eye out,&#8221; Chicchetti said and her family will continue to report to the school and the city police unruly behavior by off-campus students.</p><p>Paul Adams, vice president of student affairs at Wilkes, said the school has met with the student who broke the window.</p><p>&#8220;The student understands that the University will conduct its own internal review through its judicial process. While we are deeply troubled and disappointed by the choices made by our student, we are heartened that he came forward to accept responsibility and to apologize to the Chicchetti family and provide restitution for the property damage,&#8221; Adams said in an email.</p><p>Chicchetti and her father-in-law John Chicchetti spoke out at last week&#8217;s city council meeting about loud parties and prior damage done to their property by students. She provided the council with a compact disc that included a video of the student breaking a front porch window just after 2 a.m. on Nov. 1.</p><p>&#8220;Things are to the point now where we can&#8217;t continue to live like this. We now have a $250 bill for this window we have to pay for because no one&#8217;s accepting responsibility,&#8221; she told council.</p><p>Police and school officials have been contacted in the past but the problems have not abated. The student with the knife made her and her family fearful, she said.</p><p>&#8220;This is not an instance of college kids having parties. They are adults. They are performing crimes and there&#8217;s not any accountability for this,&#8221; she said.</p><p>John Chicchetti said there are no police reports of the numerous times he&#8217;s called to report parties, damage or crowds of people in the street. He asked what has to be done to declare the off-campus apartments nuisance properties.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not trying to fight City Hall. I&#8217;m asking for your help. I don&#8217;t know what else to do,&#8221; he said at the council meeting. &#8220;If I can&#8217;t get any assistance, I&#8217;m going to have to pack up my tent and head west. It&#8217;s crazy. I&#8217;ve been there over 30 years and for 30 years it&#8217;s been almost the same. I had one year of peace and quiet.&#8221;</p><p>At the council meeting, vice chairman Bill Barrett, a former police chief, said he and councilman and former police chief Tony George dealt with similar problems and had success assigning plainclothes-officers to the trouble spots.</p><p>&#8220;You only have to do that for a very short period of time until they get the message, so it&#8217;s something we may want to consider doing on Friday nights,&#8221; Barrett said.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">The Wilkes University student who came forward and admitted breaking a window at a house on South River Street on Nov. 1 paid for the damage and will not be prosecuted, the home&#8217;s owner said. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/web1_vandal3.jpg</photo0><caption0>The Wilkes University student who came forward and admitted breaking a window at a house on South River Street on Nov. 1 paid for the damage and will not be prosecuted, the home&#8217;s owner said. </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Jerry Lynott</p><p>jlynott@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Jerry Lynott at 570-991-6120 or on Twitter @TLNews</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Apology accepted, family will not press charges against Wilkes student for breaking window