Police gearing up for Welcome Weekend

As students celebrate Welcome Week festivities, law enforcement officers are preparing for alcohol citations.

Officers hope to crack down on underage drinking this weekend by patrolling areas where past incidents occurred. These alcohol citations can cost students hundreds of dollars and can lead to an arrest.

Indiana State Excise Police Officer Travis Thickstun said this Welcome Weekend has the potential for interesting situations for both officers and students.

“Many students have not been away from home or parents or some kind of significant oversight until they get to college,” Thickstun said. “So you have not only that, but you have a situation where classes haven’t started ... and you have a football game Saturday.”

Bloomington Police Department Sgt. Jeff Canada said BPD expects to receive more calls this weekend because of Labor Day. BPD plans to have officers patrolling the bar area between Walnut Street and Kirkwood Avenue for intoxicated people or for disturbances, Canada said.

“With the influx of all the students and with the holiday, we expect our calls to be more this weekend,” Canada said. “We try to prepare our shifts for that.”

Although IU officials said this year’s freshman class is the biggest in IU history, excise police and the IU Police Department plan to have the same number of officers patrolling the area.

As of Wednesday, excise police will use many officers from surrounding areas to check grocery stores, restaurants, bars, liquor stores and areas where past incidents have occurred to check for underage drinking or for adults buying minors alcohol, Thickstun said.

Last year more than 200 alcohol citations were issued to IU students during Welcome Week, according to an Aug. 28, 2007 IDS article.

Students aren’t the only ones who can get cited.

Big Red Liquors on College Avenue and Kilroy’s on Kirkwood were both issued citations involving minors and alcohol last year, according to the article.

IUPD Capt. Jerry Minger said an increasing number of arrests involve medical attention. Although the number of IUPD officers won’t increase because of Welcome Week, Minger said officers are prepared to handle those situations.

The article reported that 13 of the 32 arrests last year made by the IUPD involved medical assistance.

Minger advises students to “make well-informed, mature decisions” this weekend.