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ABOUT CAMPUS

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On the Welcome Week beat with the AAPD


Ann Arbor Vice
A night in the life of the
AAPD party patrol
As the headlights of Ann Arbor
Police Officer Denny DeGrand's
slow-moving squad car illuminated
a wall of angry faces, a booming
"boo" gained volume and followed
the car down the block.
"I'll close the window so we
don't get a bottle in here or spit at,"
DeGrand said.
Breaking up Greenwood block
party during Welcome Week can
get dangerous, but that's what the
AAPD's special "party patrol" was
created to do.
The party patrol, about a dozen
officers that ticket student drinkers
between 10:30 p.m. to 6 a.m. dur-
ing Welcome Week and weekends
of football home games, has been
the AAPD's way of dealing with
hoards of drunken students since
the advent of the kegger.
The main goal of mass ticket-
ing for minor in possession or open
intoxication, the two most com-
mon offenses, is to keep students
uncomfortable with breaking laws

' _ ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHN OQUIST

that lead to dangerous behavior
like fighting, binge drinking and
tearing city signs from the ground,
AAPP Officer Brad Rougeau said.
The officers carry around large
cans of mace that can debilitate an
entire crowd with one spray. Riot
gear waits back at the station.
"All it's going to take is one group
of them to start chanting or some-
thing," DeGrand said.
Officers agree that Welcome
Week without party patrol would
mean an increase in everything
from broken glass to alcohol poi-
soning.
"All we're trying to do is contain
it, keep it down to a manageable
level," Rougeau said. "We're not
going to stop it, we know that. We
have no illusions of grandeur."
Though the rate of alcohol-re-
lated tickets given out per night is
circumstantial, Rougeau said that
many students have gotten the hint
by the end of the fall.
"Usually 10, 12, 15 per night, it
tends to taper off toward the end of
football season," he said. "There's a
learning curve."
In an atmosphere where
debauchery is the norm, party

patrol officers canvas student
neighborhoods, investigating com-
plaints around campus for pedes-
trians to slap with citations for
open alcohol or disorderly conduct.
As DeGrand drove around on
Thursday night, noise violations lit
up his squad car computer screen
and a coworker's voice crackled in
over the radio about a female stu-
dent fighting with an officer.
With all the fear in involved,

exchanges between officers and
students tend to play out primi-
tively. The officer approaches his
unsuspecting target purposefully
- pointing a flashlight just at the
moment it's too late to run. Then
the offender tenses up like a cor-
nered baby rabbit, making a vain
attempt to drop or hide his drink.
According to DeGrand, the most
surefire -way to slap a wandering
drinker with an "open intox" is to

hide and wait.
Two minutes into his stakeout in
an alley across from East Quad, he
spotted a Washtenaw Community
College student strolling around
with a friend and a can of Busch
Light.
"I..." she said meekly- when
DeGrand stopped her. Knowing
it would be hopeless to struggle,
the minor sighed and let herself be
See ABOUT CAMPUS, Page SB

From Page 5B
empty-handed from the 20-yard
chase. "To us, it's no big deal. But
they'll probably be talking about
this for the next two months."
After 12 years on party patrol,
DeGrand treats these escapes with
gruff indifference, attributing this
one to his own ambition.
"I tried to get both at once," he
said, shaking his head.
But you don't necessarily have
to work in teams to escape.
"So many tickets," DeGrand

bemoaned, surveying the intersec-
tion of Greenwood and East Uni-
versity.
"There's aU.I.P..." he said, point-
ing his flashlight at a skinny guy in
a purple polo peeing in the bushes
on Greenwood.
Turning sheepishly toward
DeGrand, the offender zipped up
his pants and bolted. This chase
lasted a little longer, but was like-
wise deemed not worth the fight.
"He got away!" hollered two
male onlookers, waving their arms
in giddy support for the pisser. "He

got away!"
. Rougeau said thatstudents don't
usually run from police officers,
but when they do, shenanigans
and penalties abound.
He recounted his shift last
Wednesday where he tackled and
fell on top of a student who was
brazenly urinating on the corner
of Geddes and Observatory.
"We kept saying 'come over
here, come over here,' but he didn't
listen. We probably wouldn't have
given him two tickets, but he was
far too drunk. He was peeing and

kept denying that he was peeing,
so..."
The student was slapped with
misdemeanors for minor in pos-
session and urinating in public.
"One of the things, one of the
phenomena, is what becomes nor-
mal after a while," Rougeau said.
On the drive away from Green-
wood, DeGrand's sights fell on a
party at the corner of Thompson
and Packard Street.
He nodded to the student with
dreadlocks who evaded him an
hour earlier.'

"Let's see if he runs when I pull
up to the house," DeGrand said.
Sliding into the neighboring drive-
way,. he caught the kid in his squad
car spotlight and chuckled when
he dashes full-tilt into the back-
yard.
Driving back to the station,
DeGrand pondered his choice not
to get the dreadlocked guy.
"It's one of those, is it really
worth it?" he asked, rubbing his
chin. "Although, for him... it might
have been worth it."
-SARA LYNNE THELEN


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