Another Welcome Week has come and gone — and as usual, stray beer bottles litter lawns, the stench of alcohol permeates East Lansing’s streets and hundreds now own freshly issued MIPs and noise citations.
On their busiest week of the year, East Lansing police – who were out in full force on bicycle, foot and horseback – reported crime was relatively quiet in comparison to previous Welcome Weeks.
“It’s a little early, but for the East Lansing Police Department right now, the amount of activity, the amount of people in the streets was very comparable to previous years,” said East Lansing police Capt. Kim Johnson.
“For the most part, it went very well.”
Johnson estimated that East Lansing police issued a combined 400 tickets on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. The department’s jail, which typically holds 25-30 people, was near capacity all weekend, he said.
While officers issued hundreds of minor citations, Johnson said the main goal of limiting serious incidents was accomplished.
“We’re following up on a couple of different cases, some assaults, things of that nature, but nothing too serious for us to speak of right now,” he said.
The biggest task facing the police during Welcome Week is the fact that so many nonstudents descend on East Lansing for the weekend. In previous years, more than half of all those arrested during Welcome Week were nonstudents, Johnson said.
According to the MSU police blotter, about 80 alcohol-related arrests and citations were made from Thursday to Sunday.
Still, MSU police said the week was tame since they avoided serious conflicts.
“There were no major incidents or complications,” MSU police Sgt. Paul Kuchek said. “It wasn’t bad at all. We had about 10 in our jail (Saturday) night and 14 the night before, and that’s just because they were too intoxicated to be released.”
For freshmen experiencing their first Welcome Week, dorm directors and staff worked to inform students about how to stay safe in the city.
Paul Goldblatt, director of the Department of Residence Life, said students were surprisingly calm as they returned to dorm rooms from nights on the town during Welcome Week.
“From the reports I’ve gotten, things were relatively quiet,” he said. “All of our students do leave and go out to the community, but we did not have a huge number of students coming back intoxicated and causing many problems.”
Prenursing sophomore Kristen Kwasnik said she was surprised by the amount of people roaming the streets, but acknowledged how beefed up security combated the large crowds.
“The streets were really crowded I thought, especially this year,” Kwasnik said, “But I saw a lot of police and tons of police on bicycles that I didn’t see last year.”
Jacob Carpenter can be reached at carpe219@msu.edu.
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