This year's Mifflin Street Block party was ultimately a disappointment. Not because there wasn't enough alcohol, not because of the weather, not because of over-bearing police, but because of the unnecessary violence. On the 500 block of West Mifflin Street around 5 p.m. a UW-Madison student was stabbed, and suffered life-threatening injuries.
He was rushed to the emergency room where he underwent surgery and is now in stable condition. Another victim was stabbed later that night who was so drunk that he didn't realize that he had been stabbed.
What the hell? This is infuriating. The block party is supposed to be a celebration of the end of the semester and now it is in jeopardy of happening at all because of a few stupid individuals. I see two aspects of the weekend that made it so terrible; one being the new open container rules and the other being an excessive influx of ""out-of-towners.""
First, let's take a look at the open container rules. The new rules allowed people who are over 21 years old the ability to take open containers of alcohol out on the street which was forbidden in previous years. The idea was to reduce the amount of arrests and tickets handed out. I guess you could say it worked in that the amount of citations and arrests were down from last year, but the severity of the arrests were far worse.
Allowing open containers led to increased violence as people got more and more intoxicated.
Next, let's discuss out-of-towners. I want to be very clear in that I don't at all think we can fully blame visiting people for the increase in violence, since Madison residents had their fair share of citations. With that said, as I read through Saturday's police reports, I could not believe the amount and severity of crimes committed by out-of-towners. Some examples include battery to a police officer, possession of cocaine, possession with intent to deliver marijuana and one incident in which the victim was punched in the face and given a broken knee when his assailants, who were from Illinois, smashed it in with a baseball bat.
As a resident of Mifflin Street, I was particularly worried about my safety and that of myself, my friends and my home. We were fortunate enough to only sustain two broken windows and a broken chair. Of course it could have been much worse, since these damages were sustained due to one angry party-goer who ran into the house throwing punches. Thankfully, he didn't injure anyone and was ultimately arrested.
Needless to say, out-of-towners need to stay out of town. This block party is not a time for you to come to Madison, get completely trashed and then ruin our good time because you can't hold your shit. I implore UW-Madison students to minimize the amount of people they invite for Mifflin next year, if it even happens. I would like to see this tradition continue in the future and I think by reducing the amount of out-of-towners we can party in peace.
I can guarantee that nothing like Saturday will happen ever again. Mayor Paul Soglin showed his utter disgust with the events that transpired at the block party telling the Wisconsin State Journal, ""All I'm interested in is ending this thing.""
We will never again get the privilege of open containers and you can count on an increased police presence on future block parties. The city gave us a chance to show that we could control ourselves and we showed it otherwise.
Nick Fritz is a sophomore majoring in marketing. Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
