Pearl Street in the summer of 2020, before the October gathering.(Henry Larson/CU Independent)
Friday night, Oct. 29, around 9:30 pm, large crowds of college students started gathering on Pearl Street in their Halloween costumes. Boulder Police estimated a couple of thousand people gathering, “prompting concerns about dangerous crowd conditions and reports of property damage to local businesses,” a press release from the City of Boulder stated.
Most of the participants are supposed to have come to the area because of social media efforts to revive the Pearl Street Mall Crawl that had been shut down and prevented from happening by police and local businesses in recent years due to safety and security concerns.
Many restaurants and shops downtown reported property damage on Friday night and Saturday morning. Although most businesses refused to let any of the partygoers into their buildings, students were hanging on light poles, trees, climbing on rooftops, breaking glass bottles, and damage was also done to tables, chairs, and windows of the small businesses.
Boulder Police had a strong presence on Pearl Street, working to disperse the crowd as much as they could. Meanwhile, they used drones to collect footage of any illegal activity. Investigators are reviewing the activity and working to identify anyone who committed unlawful acts in order to conduct consequences.
“We recognize the negative impact a situation has on our local business community which is already feeling significant pressure due to the pandemic,” Deputy Stephen Redfearn stated in the press release. “We will be using our investigative resources to demonstrate that there are consequences to destruction of property and other lawful behaviors.”
The community was also worried about COVID concerns with the number of unmasked people within a small vicinity on Pearl Street.
Boulder Police and University of Colorado Police will continue to have a strong presence in Boulder throughout the Halloween weekend.
More to come on the investigation and consequences for the unlawful behavior that occurred Friday night.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Addison Luetke at addison.luetke@colorado.edu.
