Loitering, underage drinking targeted after violent weekend
Five Points saw a violent weekend, with shots fired and punches thrown, and Randy Scott is none too surprised.
“I was disturbed,” the Columbia police chief said after a long pause, “but I’m no longer surprised. Two years in, I’m no longer surprised.”
The two assaults and a robbery in the hospitality district early Sunday morning weren’t the first Scott has seen there, but now, Columbia police are planning to crack down, he said.
Over the last few weeks, Scott said, the department has sent officers to patrol the neighborhoods surrounding Five Points, but effective next weekend, those efforts are over.
Doing so diffused the police presence in Five Points, which made criminals feel comfortable there, he said, so now cops will only focus on the district proper.
Their main focus? Underage and excessive drinking.
Scott said there wasn’t an indication that the weekend’s three most prominent crimes in Five Points were tied to gang activity. Instead, the only common denominator police have found between them so far is drinking.
The department is taking a “no tolerance” policy on crime — including underage drinking — and while he said officers won’t be out to get students, complaints of excessive police presence are nothing new.
“Now, those won’t bother me,” Scott said.
Columbia police sent 22 officers to Five Points Saturday night, he said, and while this weekend won’t see so many since there isn’t a USC home football game, they’ll be there in the force for the Georgia game.
Sending more officers there won’t distract from crime elsewhere in the city, Scott said, since the police who patrol the area are part of a special task force, brought in on overtime. So far this year, the department has dropped $90,000 on overtime pay to cover Five Points, he said.
They’ll send around 40 officers the weekend of the Georgia contest, as they anticipate larger-than-usual crowds.
Night games, he said, generally make for more eventful nights than their earlier counterparts, since fans usually start drinking later in the day, and they let out around 11 p.m. — prime time for a district frequented by students “to get drunk.”
USC police will probably beef up their ranks that night, too, said Capt. Eric Grabski, a spokesman for the USC Division of Law Enforcement and Safety.
Officers from the university don’t patrol Five Points directly, Grabski said, but will respond to calls for backup or incidents that might involve students.
As the Georgia game approaches, USC will likely have its crime suppression unit and more officers, with overlapping shifts, at the ready, Grabski said.
As for Columbia’s cops, they’ll be taking a harder line on otherwise underenforced laws, Scott said.
Police plan to crack down on loitering, cruising and taking open containers outside bars.
Officers had been lenient when patrons stepped outside for a smoke with their drinks, but they’ll be taking a harder line when they come out from private establishments.
“Once you step past the awning, you’re mine,” Scott said.
City Council, he said, is also likely to look at reworking its loitering law to be more enforceable and at reconsidering a 2 a.m. bar closing.
Doing so, he hopes, will prevent incidents where they’re most common, on the street corners where revelers congregate, especially near the Pour House and Grilled Teriyaki, Scott said.
Otherwise, Scott said he wouldn’t be surprised if the department sends canine units to Five Points, and he’d be “in love” if he could get a few motorcycles patrolling there, too.
Columbia police is also likely to see a more prominent presence in the area soon, he said, since the department has gotten a lease for a space above the Food Lion on Harden Street for $1 a year. At present, it maintains a substation just up Devine Street.
Scott has also started meeting with sororities on campus to educate them on drinking and violence, he said, since students are the most frequent visitors to the district.
The increased efforts recall the city’s 2011 response to the beating of Carter Strange in Five Points.
The city established a youth curfew, and city police, Scott said, established a no-nonsense tone when it came to crime nearby.
“It’s time to set that tone again,” he said.