Five Points, special events stretch force thin
Columbia police have ramped up their presence in Five Points, the city’s played host to a number of special events lately, and it’s starting to take a toll.
The police department sent 28 officers to the bar district Saturday night after the Arkansas game, making 25 arrests and issuing 36 charges. That’s down from 41 officers for Tennessee and 72 for Georgia, according to data presented in a presentation to city council’s public safety committee Tuesday.
For Georgia, a night game that pitted two top-10 teams just weeks after a weekend marred by violence in Five Points, the officers were among a group of 113 personnel who kept tabs on the area, Police Chief Randy Scott said.
That night saw a total of 41 arrests and 63 charges, but police prevented any serious incidents from breaking out, and that, Scott said, “is a great testament to a lot of coordination that went on.”
With an observation tower, fire officials shutting down overfilled bars and the presence of a number of other law enforcement agencies, that weekend may have established a new set of best practices for big events for the department, Scott said.
But doing so comes at a cost, and the department spent $12,199 on overtime and other expenses that night.
Their presence has impacts elsewhere, too.
The Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center has to increase its staffing the nights of football games, the city’s Solid Waste Division sends a crew to clean up in the wee hours of the morning and the city’s municipal court gears up the next morning to filter through the charges for bond hearings.
More charges have also come in from across the city, and the department’s ability to process them has been stretched thin.
Its records division hasn’t been able to keep up with the increase, Scott said, so he suggested to the committee that the division focus only on incident reports. At present, it also processes a handful of business licenses.
Cutbacks at the municipal court level have also slowed the processing time for warrants, said Dana Turner, the city’s top judge, since some night shifts have gone uncovered, making some officers wait until the morning to handle paperwork.
Events: Special events, like parades and festivals, have also weighed on the department, as the city has held anywhere between four to 28 each weekend. They total 425 events and 206 road closures in the past fiscal year, up from 327 events and 145 closures the year before, according to the presentation.
Those snap up a number of the department’s force of 406 sworn officers, Scott said.
On Oct. 6, the day of the Georgia game, 166 of them were sent out to the Benedict College and USC football games, the annual Walk for Life event and a number of other spots.
Of those officers, 107 were on the clock for the city, costing $31,743 in overtime, according to data provided by the Columbia Police Department.
And when it comes to paying for it, Scott suggested tacking on a $5-per-hour administrative fee to organizations that host events — taking the total cost to $40 per hour per officer — and increasing the special event permit fee to $25. At present, the permit fee is $5.
Crime data: Scott said the police department’s crime data will be posted online in real time, which it did for the first time Tuesday.
The data is submitted to RAIDS Online, a Web service operated by Bair Analytics. Columbia police join the USC Division of Law Enforcement and Safety, West Columbia Police Department and Lexington Police Department in using the service.