Town-Gown Relations? What About Gown-Gun?

The PGPD, University Police, the City and UMD organized a "Welcome Back Students" event last Friday in an effort to improve a tense relationship between students and law enforcement.

I'm sure the relationship was never all that cordial, but the big breakup definitely came after the March 4 Route 1 riot, in which police knocked the stuffing out of several students and can't seem to get a conviction for anything.

Is this all it's going to take? Is the student community going to forget about the riot and go back to just kind of not liking the police instead of actively being angry about them?

Another aspect I'm really curious about is the community opinion about this whole thing — regarding the riot, was it police ruining a good time or students blocking traffic and breaking the law? A little of both?

And about the repairing of relations — did this really do anything? What else can they do?