Daily Aztec 10/02/02

Local organizations crack down on parties

Law enforcement agents issue 165 misdemeanor arrests over two weekends

By Leslie Hackett
Assistant City Editor

Fifteen San Diego organizations joined forces in an effort to crack down on loud parties.

While the majority of the project -- the SDSU College Area Party Plan -- took place during the first two weekends of school, the University Police Department at San Diego State has been continuing its efforts to help keep problems in the College Area community at a minimum.

Law enforcement agents issued a fair amount of arrests during the project.

For the combined two weekends -- a total of four nights -- 165 misdemeanor arrests were made.

For the most part, those in violation of the law were not booked into jail. Rather, officers issued citations to violators with their written promise to appear in court.

The coalition set up a central command center, a large mobile trailer filled with computers and areas where officers could work. The headquarters were set up in the Faith Presbyterian Church parking lot near the corner of Campanile Drive and Montezuma Road.

Since so many groups were involved in the project, the center acted as a central location where everyone could meet.

If someone was arrested, the command center acted as a holding cell. When enough arrests were made, people were then transported to jail in a prisoner van.

Paperwork concerning the project was filled out and filed at the center.

San Diego Police officers Richard Fox and Casey Jennings, along with Sgt. Andrew Hoffman came up with the idea for the new project.

Fox called the project a progressive approach to cracking down on College Area parties.

The primary goal of the project was to reduce the number of calls for service regarding loud, disturbing parties by residents in the SDSU community.

"We were hoping that by taking a firm enforcement stand, that the word would get out and people would not host large, multi-hundred parties," Fox said. "It doesn't seem to be a problem when there's 10, 15, 20 people. It's when there's 75, 125, up to 300 people that it becomes a problem."

Organizations involved said they felt the project was successful in meeting its goals.

"We got a fairly good response from the houses that had been having problems," University Police Sgt. Doug Miller said.

While the participating organizations have received good feedback from community members, they will continue to track the number of service calls to see if there is a reduction from last year.

"I feel that we were effective with our quick response to the citizens in shutting down these parties, but it's too early to tell whether or not the overall plan of reducing calls for service was effective," Fox said.

Because the project appears to have been successful, members of both the SDPD and University Police say they want to execute the operation periodically throughout the year, during times of increased partying.

The San Diego District Attorney's Office is currently in the process of evaluating and issuing the cases involved in the project.

Chandani Flinn, deputy city attorney, said most of the cases will be heard in court from the beginning of October through November.

Flinn said penalties for the cases will vary and will be handed out at the point of plea or when the court hands out a sentence. Depending on the nature of the offense, violators will face anything from fines to probation, or possibly even jail time.

Flinn was able to get a firsthand look at what actually goes on in the College Area during weekend parties. On Sept. 7, the first Saturday of the party plan, she accompanied police officers on calls.

"I saw how the kids were treating the officers," Flinn said. "I saw a huge amount of disrespect that I was really surprised by. I saw a lack of respect for people's property &emdash; yards being littered with bottles of alcohol everywhere, people urinating, throwing up on their neighbor's lawns."

The night opened Flinn's eyes to the problems people living in the College Area have to deal with all the time. She said that college-aged people ask to be treated with respect and in a mature manner, but the actions she saw didn't reflect mature behavior.

"One guy actually took a beer can full of beer and threw it at one of the officers," she said. "I mean what are you doing? That's an assault on an officer. Do (students) really want this on their permanent records?"

So what are the students' takes on the project?

Austin*, who was arrested for resisting arrest, thinks the police were overreacting.

After asking an officer for a lighter on his way out of a party that was being broken up, Austin said all of a sudden an officer pushed him to the curb and he was handcuffed.

Austin said he was taken to the command center where he was read his rights before being transferred downtown to jail. There, he spent 12 hours and had to pay $5,000 in bail to be released. He is scheduled to appear in court in the beginning of this month.

Austin thinks what happened to him was unnecessary. He said he never touched the officer and had a right to ask him a question.

"We're just college kids out having fun," Austin said.

Another student, Miranda*, was cited for disturbing the peace after co-hosting a party where the attendance exceeded 400 people.

While she figured the police would eventually show up to the party, Miranda feels that receiving the misdemeanor was going overboard. In the past, parties at her house have been large, but this is the first time the police have shown up and it was a first offense for all of the people living in the house.

"We should have just gotten a warning," she said.

When their house and back yard couldn't fit anymore people, Miranda said they started flowing out into the front yard. It was at this point that she locked the front door so no more people could get in.

"Our neighbors had a right to complain this time because it got so big," Miranda said.

She also said officers were video taping while they were breaking up the party and Miranda felt this action was not necessary and violated the privacy of the people who lived in the house.

Fox stressed that the objective of the project was not to ruin people's good times, rather, the groups wanted students to be cautious and responsible in the way they partied, which includes being courteous to their neighbors.

"We're not out to make this a no fun zone -- that's not our goal," Fox said. "We want people to enjoy themselves. We're not against people drinking, we're just against people drinking irresponsibly."

When breaking up parties, driving under the influence becomes a great concern. Fox said officers are caught between a rock and a hard place in this situation.

Residents and community members complain about the noise and request the party gets broken up. To regulate the noise, Fox said they need to get rid of the drunk people who are loud and obnoxious.

"We can only hope, that when people leave, because it is so close to campus, that they live nearby and they're responsible enough to just walk home and not drive," Fox said.

To combat drunk driving, University Police will be targeting those who choose to drive under the influence. This weekend, which ends the month-long project, there will be a high volume of officers specifically looking for drunk drivers.

"There's hundreds of people leaving these parties," Fox said. "We hope they have either designated drivers, or friends or they walk to another friend's house. We certainly, under no circumstance, want to place a drunk person behind the wheel and force them to leave -- that would be a horrible situation."

* Names changed to protect identity