The Dos and Don’ts of the Halloween Block Party.
With thousands of people flooding Court Street in costumes to meet friends, listen to bands and possibly indulge in more than a few alcoholic beverages, local police warn the Athens Halloween Block Party on Saturday could either end as your best or worst night ever.
Athens City officials project to spend as much as $60,000 on overtime for more than 100 police officers to roam the streets Saturday night.
We’ve compiled a list of dos and don’ts to hopefully save you a trip to OhioHealth O’Bleness Hospital or the Nelsonville jail Saturday night.
DRESS FOR THE OCCASION, BUT NOT LIKE A COP
Ohio University Police Chief Andrew Powers said participants should be thoughtful about the costumes they wear. That means dressing according to the weather.
“Halloween can be a chilly night,” Powers said. “Every year we have at least a couple of people that end up getting treated for exposure at the hospital because they weren’t dress appropriately.”
Costumes can cause a slew of problems for local police, said Athens Police Chief Tom Pyle.
“If someone comes up and says, ‘A guy dressed as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle assaulted me,’ and there’s 100 (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), we have to check all of their knuckles for blood and we can’t do that,” Pyle said. “We have no probable cause at that point to do that. And they get mad.”tles), we have to check all of
Pyle also warned against dressing like one of his officers. Those costumes usually stand out, he said.
“They’ll dress like a police officer so convincingly and then act like a police officer. That catches our attention.”
GUARD YOUR PHONES
Have a passcode or a lock screen on your phones.
“A lot of people have Facebook, Twitter and other apps like that logged-in on their phone,” Powers said. “If there’s no passcode (and) if somebody finds your phone, they can certainly wreak havoc with it.”
He also cautioned people to not use phone-locating apps by his or herself while recovering the missing cellphone.
“There may be people in town who are looking to steal phones,” he said. “You might not want to go knocking on their door and say, ‘I think you’ve got my cellphone.’”
GAUGE YOUR ALCOHOL AND CONTAINER
An individual’s ability to assess danger becomes increasingly impaired as he or she consumes more alcohol, as does his or her moral judgement.
Officers won’t think twice about making arrests this weekend, Pyle said.
“Getting drunk is step one, and engaging in social and morally unacceptable behavior, like physical or sexual violence, you’re going to attract attention. When you do, on this particular weekend, police officers will be very impatient and not give out a lot of warnings.”
Though it’s a party atmosphere, Pyle warned against nefarious drunken behavior.
You will likely get caught, he said.
“People will throw things at us because they’re costumed and they think the likelihood of them getting caught is nil, so they’ll assault a police officer or run from a police officer.”
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