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news
Police limit
festival crime
By Ben Dimapindan
On-line Forty-Niner
As the jazzy blare
of the 22nd annual Long Beach Blues Festival enticed over
20,000 music fans to the campus athletic field over Labor
Day weekend, it also attracted plenty of public intoxication
reports and marijuana complaints.
The 10 University
Police officers assigned to the venue certainly had their
hands full after confiscating illicit substances -- marijuana,
which the officers later ordered to be destroyed -- and citing
intoxicated individuals to ensure the optimal safety of everyone
at the two-day event.
"It's not
uncommon for us to encounter those types of incidents with
this event," University Police Capt. Stan Skipworth said.
"People just choose to use them there I guess."
Especially since
alcohol was sold at the Blues Festival venue, it came as no
surprise to those attending the event that some negative outcomes
would imminently result from so many people drinking.
"I saw a lot
of people with alcohol, drinking margaritas and beer,"
said Cal State Long Beach alumnus Kalim Rayburn, who attended
the event Sunday. "I saw one guy pass out and the ambulance
came to wheel him away. People kept dancing, but it made people
aware [of the dangers of overdrinking], especially because
he was a really big guy.
"[People onstage]
kept making plenty of announcements for everyone to drink
plenty of water and that they had water available there."
The three reported
marijuana complaints came from the track and field, Lot 11
and the athletic field, which was the site of the Blues Festival.
Meanwhile, the reported cases of public intoxication were
from Lot 11, the athletic field and the VIP entrance of the
Blues Festival, which was located on the east side of the
athletic field.
With the reports
coming from places scattered throughout campus, University
Police officers handled very well the daunting tasks of responding
to each case and issuing appropriate violations to the subjects,
according to Skipworth.
"The officers
did a very good job," Skipworth said. "They had
an awful lot of people out there and a lot of different activities
going on. The officers assigned to that event as well as our
patrol officers did a magnificent job in responding to our
to everything that came up."
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