News
Business As Usual For Police Force On Halloween
By: Susan Tebben | The Athens Messenger
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For police in the Athens area and units coming from surrounding areas, the Halloween weekend isn’t being treated any differently than any other Halloween.
“We’ve never had a year when we’ve been overwhelmed,” said Capt. Ralph Harvey of the Athens Police Department. “We’ve always prepared for the worst and hoped for the best.”
Police units from counties like Vinton and Gallia will be joining the local police, including horse-mounted units.
As with other years, troopers from the State Highway Patrol Athens Post will be helping out as well, Harvey said. But police numbers will be about the same as in recent years, with no reason to up the numbers this year.
“We learn something new every year,” Harvey said. “But it’s usually logistics (strategies) like where to put the booking, where to put the food, where to park, that kind of thing,” Harvey said.
Members of the Ohio Investigative Unit will be conducting plain-clothes liquor control activities during the weekend. The event is part of the unit’s regularly scheduled calendar of patrol events, said spokesperson Eric Wolf.
The police force does not anticipate large amounts of arrests, although it does see large amounts of citations every year. Citations, while counted in statistics, do not require police to escort individuals to the station for booking.
“We see hundreds of citations, for intoxication, public urination, disorderly conduct, those sorts of things, but not the arrests,” Harvey said. “Halloween has been getting calmer and smaller over the years.”