By Jessica Rocha and Samuel Spies
The News & Observer
Copyright 2007 The News and Observer
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Like the young men dressed as Tetris shapes spotted on Franklin Street Wednesday night, Chapel Hill police faced their own annual puzzle of trying to keep the peace with tens of thousands of people crowding in just a few blocks to celebrate Halloween.
Police were expecting close to 70,000 revelers, said Chapel Hill Police spokesman Lt. Kevin Gunter.
Families, college students and others came out to enjoy the fair night and mild temperatures.
The crowd had started to swell about 10:30 p.m. At midnight, groups continued to arrive at the party, packing Franklin and Columbia streets.
Rodger Otero of Chapel Hill dressed as a Rubik’s Cube. His wife, Angela Otero, was a suggestion box, complete with a pad of paper on which people could write suggestions.
Suggestions included warmer weather and to stay away from drugs.
“It’s good clean fun if you make it good clean fun,” said Rodger Otero, a pastor and a teacher at Chapel Hill’s Culbreth Middle School.
By the witching hour, a few fights had broken out, and EMS workers had treated and transported a handful of people with alcohol overdoses — including one man who assaulted an EMS worker aiding him.
Last Halloween, 18 people were taken to UNC Hospitals last year for medical treatment, most for intoxication.
But it is the very late-night crowd — those still celebrating after midnight — that has proven a little more menacing in recent years. Chapel Hill officers have noted some suspected gang activity, Gunter said.
Last year, a man was hospitalized after being shot as he and a friend were robbed near Merritt Mill Road while walking to their car about the time the Franklin Street part was wrapping up.
Police also arrested 27 people in 2006 with a variety of charges, including many fights and assaults, and one person was arrested for possessing a handgun inside the Franklin Street perimeter.
In recent years, the threat of violence has forced law enforcement officers to confiscate parts of costumes that either were weapons or might be mistaken for weapons.
A couple that had moved from Florida learned that during their first visit to Franklin Street on Wednesday.
Matthew Sampson lost the cane to his Planters peanut costume. His girlfriend, Valerie Stratico, lost the umbrella to her Morton’s salt girl costume.
The couple didn’t complain, though. “I feel bad for ... [the police] that they have to take people’s stuff away,” Stratico said.
This year, the party was to officially end at 1:30 a.m.
About 389 officers, including three on mounted patrol from Fayetteville, were scheduled to work on and around Franklin Street during the event.
Many officers came on duty at 6:45 p.m. Wednesday, and all were briefed at 8 p.m. Some were to work until 3 or 4 in the morning, Gunter said. “This is a tough night for us,” he said.
The police were not the only ones working.
A Barack Obama campaign worker handed out fliers advertising the Democratic presidential candidate’s appearance scheduled for today at N.C. Central University.
The costume: an Obama campaign T-shirt.