Alcohol leads to uptick of 75 more incidents in College Park of racetrack
After increasing their undercover surveillance at the Carolina Cup, police made nearly 75 more arrests than at last year’s race day event.
Over 40 deputies from the Kershaw County Sheriff’s Office, in addition to a handful of officers from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division and USC’s Department of Law Enforcement and Safety, were on patrol in the “College Park” area of Springdale Race Course on Saturday. Combined they made approximately 225 arrests, in comparison to 150 arrests last year. Only eight arrests were made in the other viewing sections combined.
This doesn’t much surprise Kershaw County Sheriff Jim Matthews, who has watched the section become a hotbed for binge drinking that other Cup patrons steer clear of.
“The race itself is a great event, it’s just that College Park gives the whole thing a black eye because the vast majority of people there — not everybody — get drunk really quickly,” Matthews said.
Typical alcohol-related offenses on Saturday included underage possession of alcohol, fake IDs and public intoxication. Matthews also cited at least one arrest for possession of cocaine.
Other situations were a little more unorthodox. Matthews said his deputies found students having sex in a horse trailer belonging to the Kershaw County Sheriff’s office parking patrol. Another student, who had stripped down to his boxer shorts, was immediately arrested after attempting to dry hump a deputy’s leg.
Alcohol incidents got more serious as the day wore on. Matthews said eight or nine students in College Park were found with alcohol poisoning and transported to the hospital. One victim was found unconscious under a tent without a pulse and had to be intubated.
“EMS really did their job,” Matthews said. “Had it been 15 more minutes before someone got to her, I’m told she would have died of alcohol poisoning.”
Matthews said those arrested for intoxication will be able to clear their record by paying $100 to attend an eight-hour alcohol awareness class at Camden’s ALPHA Behavioral Health Center.
“People say it’s not a big deal, that [drinking at Cup] is a rite of passage, but I don’t think they did it to the degree it’s done now,” Matthews said.
Matthews added that part of the blame lies with the Carolina Cup Association that runs the event. He hopes that those in office will work with him to combat the alcohol culture in College Park in the future.
“It’s become a party put on by the racing association for revenue, which I think is irresponsible of the adults who host it,” Matthews said. “There seems to be no interest in changing things, but I’m going to work on that.”
Capt. Eric Grabski of USC’s Division of Law Enforcement and Safety, which had six undercover officers on patrol in College Park, noted that the majority of those arrested were non-USC students. The Office of Student Conduct told The Daily Gamecock that they had not yet processed incident reports from the Carolina Cup.
Some students said they hardly noticed the increased presence of officers and didn’t find the crowd any more out of control than normal.
“There were a lot of students who got tickets from undercover cops,” said one USC student who asked to remain anonymous because she was ticketed for underage drinking. “Other than that, there were a few arrests, but most of the people I knew just got tickets. You didn’t notice a big difference.”
Grabski said USC police went into the event undercover not intending to “catch” anyone. At high-risk events such as the Carolina Cup, Grabski said they’re more concerned with those who put themselves and others at risk by drinking irresponsibly.
“The reason wasn’t just to stop and ask people for IDs — it was to keep our students safe and other members of the community as well,” Grabski said.