By Mike Napolitano

As complaints from neighbors about college parties on Columbus Avenue increase, Boston Police are keeping a closer eye on loud, underage drinking parties, according to a spokesperson for the Boston Police Department (BPD).

BPD spokesperson Jill McLaughlin said that while BPD has not stepped up patrols in the area, police are narrowing their focus on college parties.

“The captain over in District 4 is very adamant about the underage house parties that are going on,” she said about Captain William Evans, who oversees the Back Bay, South End, Lower Roxbury and Fenway areas. These areas encompass the Northeastern campus.

Early Sunday morning, BPD officers arrested four Northeastern students while on patrol near Columbus Avenue. Three of the students were charged with possession of alcoholic beverages by persons under 21 and disturbing the peace. A fourth was charged with disturbing the peace, trespassing and resisting arrest.

The cases against the five Northeastern students were dismissed Monday prior to arraignment on the condition that they each perform 15 hours of community service, said Jake Wark, press secretary of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office.

Makler said he and the other students chose to do 15 hours of community service to pay for their publicly appointed lawyers, and it was not a punishment.

Makler said he was also told BPD was getting tougher on students who party.

“A detective came the next day and told us police by Northeastern were cracking down,” Makler said. “He said they wanted to make an example of us.”

Some students said details on the police report were wrong. One underage student was at the focus of the report, who police told The News lived at the apartment, and who had slammed a door in an officer’s face while fleeing inside. The student said this was not true.

“We had been invited by the residents of the apartment for a birthday party being held for one of the students living there,” he said. “When I arrived at apartment five I opened the door and was immediately grabbed by the wrist by an individual who was standing in the doorway. I was yanked inside the apartment and heard the door slam violently behind me.”

The student said he had only been at the party for about 15 minutes and was about to leave when the police arrived. He said he had not been drinking. When he went to leave out the back door with a group of other people, he said an officer singled him out.

“He spotted me and threw me against the wall, telling me ‘I wasn’t going anywhere,'” he said. “When I asked why I was being handcuffed he told me because I slammed the door in his face.”

Another of the students who was arrested said their lawyers thought the charges against them were unnecessary.

“The lawyers said police must have been really angry that night for some reason, but it didn’t look like anything out of the ordinary,” he said.

He said police knocked on his bedroom door to arrest him when he was asleep.

“I had been [at the party] earlier on in the evening, but I had gone to sleep about an hour before [police arrived],” he said.

Wark said the case was dismissed because none of the defendants had a criminal record and prosecutors did not object. Because the students were never arraigned, Wark could not confirm or deny any mistakes made in the BPD report.

One of the underaged students arrested said there were three other parties going on in the building at the same time, and neither he nor one of the other students under age 21 had been drinking.

“Sometimes [parties] get out of control and cops have to get involved,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that happened to us. We’re really just ashamed of all this happening and are just trying to work past it.”

Jim Ferrier, associate director of the Northeastern University Division of Public Safety (NUPD), said NUPD has been following a low-tolerance policy for loud parties.

“It’s always been a high priority,” he said.

Correction: An earlier version of this story named the students who were arrested. The Huntington News has since changed its policy to not name students who are arrested, so the names have been removed.