Cops comment on the mischievious nature of the holiday
The air has grown cold and the leaves are crisp underfoot. Banshees and werewolves gaze sinisterly from scores of store windows. There are rumors of snow headed this way. Halloween is quickly approaching.
Perhaps least excited about the coming of the holiday are those uniformed individuals assigned to protect and serve the people of the city. Commander Brad Wiesley of the CUPD has seen more than his share of craziness working the Halloween shift.
“The combination of alcohol and the lack of identity always causes people to feel less inhibited,” Wiesley said.
The mixing of costume and inebriant historically leads to heightened counts of drinking, fighting and general disorderly conduct.
“Every year, we have more people working on Halloween night,” Wiesley said. “This year it falls on a Wednesday. Weekday Halloweens tend to be a little more tame then weekend Halloweens.”
However, Wiesley adds, that when Halloween is during the week, on a Thursday or a Monday, it tends to turn the holiday into a three or four-day event spread out into the weekend.
Boulder Police spokeswoman Julie Brooks stressed the importance of a heightened visual presence of police in places of heavy pedestrian traffic, like the Hill and the Pearl Street mall.
“There tend to be more inebriated people out on foot on Halloween night,” Brooks said. “Our expectation is that those people know how to behave themselves. To say that students don’t behave themselves … I think that would be inaccurate.”
All the same, Brooks noted the increased number of police the department sends out for the night.
In 2004, a riot occurred on the Hill on Halloween night, causing upwards of $70,000 in damage.
“(The riot) evolved out of a block party. Police had gotten several complaints, and when they went to shut it down, then came the rocks and bottles. And it went from there.” Such an instance is a prime example of how easily things can get out of hand on Halloween night, Brooks said.
In the years since then, however, police have reported great cooperation from students, particularly those on the Hill.
“They do the Naked Pumpkin Run every year, and I don’t think we’ve ever gotten a call about it,” Brooks said. “Believe it or not, the run actually tends to be mainly sober adults.”
The Naked Pumpkin Run seems like a healthy alternative to the Mall Crawl tradition that used to occur in the same space.
“The Mall Crawl began in the early 1980s,” Wiesley said. “It started as a costume contest for kids … somehow it turned into something like 40,000 crazed adults in the four-block span of the mall.”
Wiesley recalls several “wild and crazy nights” from the era of the Mall Crawl, an event that occurred annually until the mid-’90s, when police finally put a stop to it.
“One year I was working the mall, there was this guy there going as a sort of a drunken mountain man,” Wiesley said. “He was carrying a chainsaw through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, and all of a sudden he just fired it up. I’m happy to not have to go work it anymore.”
All in all, police readiness is seen as the crucial component to a safe Halloween.
“The key is to be proactive, to keep our eyes on something that has the potential to get out of hand,” Brooks said.
“To be honest, Halloween is not my favorite holiday,” Wiesley disclosed. “I think my favorite thing about it is when it’s over.”
Contact Campus Press Staff Writer Andrew Frankel at andrew.frankel@thecampuspress.com.
