The Madison Police Department will increase patrol numbers to curb unruly behavior the first five weekends of the school year, according to MPD Lt. Dave McCaw.
The Downtown Safety Initiative began in 2007, when the city allotted $100,000 to the Central Policing District to increase officer presence in the downtown and State Street areas between 11 p.m. and midnight Thursday, Friday and Saturday because the department consistently experienced problems during those hours, McCaw said.
He said the department will deploy more officers around the downtown and campus area at the onset of the 2013-’14 school year in an effort to reverse certain “misconceptions” incoming freshmen tend to have due to how college life is portrayed on the Internet, in movies and on television.
“Unfortunately those first few weeks we just see a lot, as does [the University of Wisconsin Police Department], a lot of people making not real good decisions that end up affecting them for a long, long, long, long time,” McCaw said. For instance “overconsumption … physical assaults, sexual assaults as well.”
McCaw said he hopes the police presence will be enough to deter criminal activity. However, he said officers will look for the individuals causing public scenes, such as “the dude who takes his shirt off,” he said, making sure those situations don’t “bubble up.”
Central district police personnel meet once per week as part of DSI to answer the question “What are our needs this weekend projected on what we know?”
According to McCaw, those factors include that weekend’s events as well as how much police intervention was required both the weekend immediately before and at that time last year.
McCaw said the goal is to maintain police visibility, “just making sure everybody keeps honest and gets through the night.”
