New Haven Police Raid Put to Music

A Philadelphia singer-songerwriter apparently found inspiration in the raid that led to the arrest of five Yale students.

After reading about the Oct. 2 incident online, Campbell Davis, 22, wrote and recorded a song called "New Haven Police" and posted it on YouTube, the New Haven Register reports.

The song begins: "New Haven police on a club raid. Five arrested, one is tased."

After seeing a video clip of the incident at the Elevate nightclub online and reading about the raid, he told the Register, the song wrote itself.

“This story sufficiently unsettled me that I had to write about it,” Davis told the paper. “I sometimes write songs to sort of work through an event."

After seeing the clip, city spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga told the newspaper that the city “really doesn’t have anything to add. It is what it is.”

Davis has no connection to Yale or New Haven, he was educated at the Ivy League’s University of Pennsylvania and felt he could identify with the students’ experience.

“I certainly could have been in the situation if something similar happened at Penn a couple of years ago,” he told the paper.

The raid at Elevate, which was holding a private party, took place as part of an enforcement crackdown in the city's entertainment district. Police have said they were responding to reports that the club was over capacity and that there was underage drinking going on at the party.

Five students were arrested during the raid and police used a stun gun on one student, saying he hit officers who were trying to arrest him.

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