The smell of beer and grilling charcoal wafted from Mifflin Street Saturday, as thousands of partiers gathered in the sun for a relatively incident-free block party.
\Frankly, we're still cleaning up down there, looking for people passed out in the bushes and whatnot,"" Madison Police Sgt. Sue Armagost said Sunday. ""No super-critical things happened, I can tell you that.""
Police estimated that 30,000 people attended the party. They arrested seven people and booked them in the Dane County Jail and cited 26 more on alcohol-related charges. Police also sent seven people to detox, according to a department release.
The only person reported injured in the event was Benjamin Schutz, 22, of Jackson, Wisconsin. Schutz fell to the ground and was knocked unconscious after he tried to climb up to a second story balcony at 543 W. Mifflin St.
UW-Madison junior Ben Whittington witnessed Schutz's accident from a porch across the street. Whittington said he ran over to see if he could help.
""There was some blood on the concrete from what I could see, but [police] didn't let people get very close,"" he said. ""The cops came over and made like a little circle around the area, but basically things just kept going on.""
Paramedics transported the unconscious Schutz to UW Hospital. A hospital spokesperson said Sunday that Schutz had been upgraded from critical to fair condition.
Aside from that accident, there were few problems, according to downtown Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4. He said the nice weather drew a crowd so large that police had to abandon the city's ban on open intoxicants in the street.
""[The police] could not even begin to think about ticketing people, let alone even have them dump out their beer,"" Verveer said.
This year's party marked the first time officers from the Dane County Sheriff's office and the University of Wisconsin Police Department helped staff the event, according to Verveer. In addition, about 100 Madison police officers patrolled the crowd. In groups or pairs, they walked up and down the street among the crowd, which consisted mostly of college and high school-aged people.
Police closed the 400 and 500 blocks of the street from 3 p.m. to 2 a.m.
UW-Madison sophomore Rachael Lonsdale hosted a six-barrel party, complete with a porch performance by the local band Blue Room Hero, but she and her guests did not have any problems with police.
""They were pretty cool about everything,"" Lonsdale said. ""Everything went well-we had some cleaning up but that's about it,"" she added.
