Officers prepare for race weekend

Every IU Police Department officer will work extra hours during Little 500 weekend, but IUPD Lt. Jerry Minger said their perspective on law enforcement won't be any different from any other weekend.\n"Our primary function, purpose and perspective is always to minimize any kind of unsafe issues and deal with any kind of illegal or unsafe activity," Minger said. "That's our primary goal. As far as our particular activities and perspective, the way we do business doesn't really change."\nMinger said Little 500 usually results in an unusually high number of arrests because the event spans over the entire weekend but said it is actually less of a problem for IUPD than a regular-season football game.\n"If you stop and think about it, we have about five home games for football each season, and the stadium can hold 50,000 people," he said. "Do you think 50,000 people will be coming to Bloomington this weekend? I don't think so."\nThe main issue during Little 500 weekend, he said, becomes scheduling. Every full-time, part-time and cadet officer will be putting in extra hours.\n"Absolutely everyone will be putting in extra hours," he said. "Some of the events are voluntary because they are smaller events where the officers would be paid by the sponsor, but some of them would be on more of a mandatory basis, because we need more bodies."\nBloomington Police Department Detective Sgt. David Drake said the BPD also takes extra precautions over Little 500 weekend.\n"We have lots of extra people in, and we work special, extended shifts," he said. "Basically, we have a large number of additional officers on-duty and are all prepared for whatever might happen."\nDrake said officers from the Indiana State Excise Police, officers who handle issues such as legal alcohol distribution and consumption, usually make a visit during Little 500 weekend. Minger said the Excise Police work separately from IUPD and sometimes alert them before they raid a Bloomington bar, but sometimes not.\n"They don't confide in us for the most part," he said. "But sometimes they'll call us at the last minute and say 'We're raiding a specific bar because of\nviolations.'"\nMinger said he has seen excise officers work undercover in liquor stores, and when they see someone purchase a large quantity of alcohol, they will sometimes follow him or her to see if he or she serves the alcohol to minors. They also often make appearances in Bloomington on weekends of home football games, he said.\nDespite the annual high arrest count, Minger said the main purpose of the increased police presence is not to look for intoxicated drivers or minor consumption. Their mission, he said, is to help with services for the events and to provide extra security because more people will be on campus.\n"We don't ever really go looking for DUIs," he said. "We're aware that they're out there, and when we do come across them, we try to minimize any danger they present."\nHe said that this weekend, like any other weekend, officers will spend most of their time providing services to citizens, such as directing traffic and helping with car accidents.\n"So many people focus on the law enforcement and criminal aspect of police work, but that's such a small percentage of what police do," Minger said.\nRegardless, people will still be arrested. People who are issued citations for certain crimes, such as illegal consumption, will be served a flier instructing them to appear at a hearing Sunday morning, pay $421 in cash and clean up Little 500 trash for half of a day. According to the flier, following these directions will keep students from having a criminal conviction on their records.\n"There will be people who wind up getting citations for illegal consumption, and that will be really evident when we see them picking up trash," Minger said. "Anybody who thinks they might get caught may want to carry some cash with them, because they don't take credit cards"