'Fun Frolic' frustrates campus police

While the annual "Fun Frolic" brightens the days of residents and college students, that exuberance comes at the expense of the IU Police Department's work because of the carnival's potential to draw criminal activity.\n"During the Frolic, we sometimes get a lot of juveniles and juvenile delinquents that are many times totally unsupervised," said IUPD spokesman Lt. Jerry Minger. "Their parents just drop them off there."\nEvery year, the Fun Frolic benefits Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Monroe County with a financial gift of a little more than $25,000. But while the event is designed to help many children, some of the problems presented to police are the cause of juvenile delinquency.\n"They're at a time of their life where they're having all these emotional problems and trying to fit in," Minger said. "In school, they have counselors to deal with these kinds of things. When they're at home, they have their parents. But when they come to the Fun Frolic, it's the police who wind up dealing with them."\nFriday night at about 8:30 p.m., IUPD Officer Ian Lovan took two juveniles into custody who were engaged in a scuffle at the carnival. During the altercation, an off-duty Monroe County Sheriff's deputy was assaulted while trying to separate the two youths but showed no visible signs of injury. One of the youths had .08 grams of a substance in his possession, which was identified as marijuana following a chemical reagent test. The juveniles were transported via squad car to IUPD headquarters at 801 N. Jordan Ave., where Juvenile Probation Services was contacted and authorized the release of the two youths to their parents' custody.\nOn Saturday night, IUPD officers Ryan Corbet and Douglas McElroy were patrolling the west side of the Memorial Stadium Parking Lot where the carnival is taking place and saw four individuals congregating near a Mercury Cougar. McElroy and Corbet approached the group, which began to walk away. McElroy said after approaching the car, he saw narcotics and paraphernalia in plain view, followed the four individuals back into the Fun Frolic and detained them. After a brief investigation, Bloomington resident Ian Kvale was cited for possession of marijuana and paraphernalia, and Dewayne Kauffman, also of Bloomington, was cited for possession of paraphernalia. Neither individual made themselves available for comment.\nMinger said the increasing prevalence of drugs in Bloomington could be attributed to people not taking the criminal consequences seriously.\n"It's common knowledge that in Monroe County, if you get caught with less than 30 grams you could wind up getting less than public intoxication," Minger said. "We're seeing more marijuana on campus. But it's always hard to say whether it's an escalation in actual use or just an enforcement issue."\nDespite the increased watch IUPD has to put over the patrons of the Fun Frolic, IUPD Sgt. Don Schmuhl said the event was not stretching its resources.\n"Because there (were) four extra part-time officers assigned to the Fun Frolic just for that, it was pretty well covered," Schmuhl said. "I'd say this Frolic we've had fewer runs out there than we've had in the past, so far"