Fans arrested at music festival

http://www.foxbororeporter.com/articles/2010/08/26/news/7852269.txt
Country record for 2010 festival


Total custodies top last year's record
By Bill Stedman
Published: Thursday, August 26, 2010 1:43 PM EDT
Shortly after 9 p.m. on Saturday, Foxboro Police Chief Edward O'Leary was feeling a bit hopeful that the 2010 edition of the annual New England Country Music Festival at Gillette Stadium would not rival last year's event, where a record 287 concert-goers were taken into custody by Foxboro and other town police officers on stadium security details.

Shortly after 11:30 p.m., his hopes were dashed when the final festival fan was taken into custody for this year.

Despite fewer country music lovers in attendance, the number of people his force had taken into police custody for criminal acts and public intoxication in and around the stadium had reached a record 318, according to Foxboro police arrest logs.

Adding the 47 persons taken into custody by state police along Route 1, the grand total of 365 beats last year's record by 29.

State police arrested 26 people and took 21 into protective custody, according to Lt. Jeffrey Stuart, commander of the Foxboro State Police barracks on Route 1. Most of the arrests were for possession of alcohol by a minor, assault and battery and disorderly conduct, he said.

O'Leary, who is also head of security for stadium events, said some things went better than expected on Saturday, such as fewer minors arrested for possession of alcohol, while others didn't. He would not make an overall statement about the event, or its future in Foxboro, when asked Monday.

"I don't want to make that assessment right now," he said. "I want to look at the logs and thoughtfully review all reports with my staff and stadium personnel."

While he wasn't happy that the number of intoxicated festival-goers taken into protective custody rose by 26 from last year, he was relieved there were no serious incidents overall.

"No one was killed," he said. "And none of my officers was injured. They all got home safe."

Gillette Stadium officials praised the work of local and state security and medical personnel in keeping festival-goers safe throughout the afternoon and evening.

"We were pleased with the effectiveness of the plan developed by Chief O'Leary, Chief (Roger) Hatfield and Lt. Stuart," said Dan Murphy, Gillette Stadium Vice President of Business Development and External Affairs. "The work of the Foxboro Police, Foxboro Fire Department and state police allowed the vast majority of more than 50,000 concert goers to have a safe and enjoyable experience."

Crime down, drunks up

Of the 318 picked up by local police, 75 were arrested and face criminal charges (down from 90 last year) while 223 were determined to be so intoxicated as to pose a risk to themselves or others and taken into protective custody. That latter number is up from 197 in 2009.

There were 53 minors under the legal drinking age of 21 taken into protective custody, including seven juveniles ages 15-16.

Of the 75 criminal charges, the majority -- 48 -- were for possession of alcohol by a minor. The good news for O'Leary is that this number is down by 20 from the 2009 festival.

O'Leary said that last year, most of those taken into custody were picked up in the parking lots, as a result of excessive tailgating before fans entered the stadium for the actual concert. He estimated that only 11 or so were taken into custody from inside the stadium in 2009.

This year, however, "there were significantly more people taken into custody during the event," he said. "It just didn't stop ... we continued to pick up people throughout the night."

O'Leary's staff was making custodies during a nearly 12-hour period, causing numerous van trips between the stadium and the Public Safety Building on Chestnut Street, where police set up a temporary holding area in the back of the station reserved only for protective custody cases.

"That was a godsend," said O'Leary. "If we didn't have it, we would have had an extremely dangerous situation where we would have had to mix the criminal arrests with the many who were alcohol-impaired."

Even with the more-streamlined system for handling the drunken fans, which included bypassing the stadium holding areas for protective custodie cases by taking them directly to the Foxboro station, O'Leary said there were still some delays in processing those in custody. That caused some of those who were waiting to pick up friends and relatives in custody at the stadium and the police station to voice their frustrations to police.

"The processing back-up was due to the sheer volume," O'Leary said, explaining that it takes at least 7-8 minutes to process each prisoner, whether criminal or protective custody.

"It's like being in the deli line on July 3 with a big order -- it's going to take a while before you get your potato salad."

Less heat

O'Leary had hoped that the cooler weather this year and a smaller attendance, which he estimated at around 47,000 actually going through the gates, would result in a calmer event than last year's festival, when sun and 90-degree temperatures seemed to foster more than the usual amount of binge drinking.

In addition, the parking lots were not opened around the stadium until 2 p.m., as designated, and early arrivals were sent into a lot across the street at a cost of $60 and told to wait in their cars. Tailgating was prohibited until 2 p.m., and some alcohol spotted in the open before then was confiscated by stadium personnel and the state police officers who are in charge of the parking areas across Route 1 from the stadium.

Last year, the lots opened at 1 p.m., as that concert started an hour earlier. As a result, many arrests were made before fans were checked at the entrance to the stadium. And last year saw many more minors arrested in the parking lots.

This year, O'Leary said, there were more calls for police during the concert, headlined by country-western star Brad Paisley, inside the stadium.

"We received a lot of calls from stadium security personnel to have us do sobriety checks," the chief said of the many intoxicated fans. "And requests for officers to come to disturbances in the seats."

He added that police weren't looking for intoxicated persons ... "They find us."

The chief himself took one man into protective custody while leaving the upper (300) level after checking that the beer concessions had been closed for the night.

"A woman came up to me and said she saw someone staggering who looked like he was going to tip over," O'Leary related. "I checked him and he said he was just going back to his seat."

But when O'Leary looked at the man's ticket as he started to stagger off, he saw that his seat was actually way down in the lower (100) level.

"So I took him into protective custody and had to half-carry him to other officers," he said.

Arrests

Of the 73 criminal arrests made by local police, seven included assault charges. Two were charged with assaulting police officers and one with assaulting a public safety official.

No serious injuries were reported.

After a chase involving state police K-9 units assisted by a state police helicopter, three Walpole teenagers were arrested for breaking into vehicles and and for possession of alcohol. The youths had fled into the woods behind the parking lot across Route 1 from the stadium, police said.

Staff reporter Frank Mortimer contributed to this story.