More on tailgating
Charles, who actually is a police officer and has to deal with these types of things each fall (as well as the other rigors and stresses of being a law enforcement agent), wrote a lengthy response in a recent tailgating post. It was very well done and really illustrated the views of someone who patiently and gracefully does a very difficult job many of us take for granted. I thought it was worth promoting to an actual post:
My personal experience and the general experience of many of the people in the (UGA Police) department who have worked football games is that the late kickoff games have far more problems overall than games with earlier kickoffs. I'm sure any county officers you talk with will say the say thing about their experiences. These are not just drunk people problems, although alcohol has so vastly much a part of them. Traffic after night games stalls out much sooner due to the volume of people leaving town, creating far more instances of road rage and aggressive driving along with drunk driving. Athens is simply not designed to handle the volume of traffic it generates on these nights. Pedestrian traffic gets bad, too, forcing people who want to show their butt closer together with people who want to kick some butt.
Increasing the police in the stadium probably will not add to any greater sense of security, but will cause logistical problems. For one, there is only so much radio traffic that can be handled by the several bandwidths used during the games. For another, every officer who works a football game is somebody receiving a paycheck for that service, and our department is already tapped to capacity at each game—each additional officer then has to come from police departments throughout Georgia. We have lately been using more GBI officers, but there has developed something of a history in knowing which departments fit the situation and which don't. To be less vague, there have been cases where officers from departments more used to aggressive law enforcement overstepped constitutional or ethical boundaries in handling people in and around the stadium. So, we don't ask those departments to supply officers anymore, which means fewer places from which to draw people to be in the stadium. As well, all this traffic has to go somewhere, so local agencies have to deal with the expanding effects with what assets they have.
Fundamentally, though, increased officer presense will not decrease the problems in and around the stadium. I attribute this, based on my experiences, to exactly this: "Besides, drinking and football go so well together." The sense of entitlement and privilege the vast majority of tailgaters and stadium guests have to having their alcohol, their football, and their stupid pride creates an entire culture where arrogance and frank criminality are acceptable. I have kicked people out of the stadium who ardently believed they have the right to come to a football game, drink alcoholic beverages they illegally sneak in, show their ass to everyone around them, and continue to stay, and I ought to not only respect their right to do all of these things, but I'm an officious ass for ejecting them from the stadium. These are not isolated instances. Nor should we just think only of what happens at the stadium. The physical state of the campus after the games reveals the rot in the hearts of many of the tailgaters who come to the games to do what they call celebration, but this is not a celebration of the pageantry of a football tradition, rather of the possibility of Bacchanalia and raucous misanthropy, wasteful excess, and criminal depravity. People, during these games, have the chance to do things they otherwise would be arrested or cited for, but because of the limitations of enforcement will be able to do these things with impunity. And as much as there is the sense of 'folks nearby' coming down hard on the obnoxious, such vigilante justice is as much the brutish product of this tailgating culture as any problem it's supposed to be handling. One drunk person beating up on another because the first thinks the other is an ass should not appear to any person as a reasonable or practical way of keeping the peace.
The problem is not quantity of law enforcement, nor is the problem one of its quality. The problem is the ideology at the base of this tailgating culture, where affluent white people think they aren't criminals while breaking various laws because these special days grant them license and further privilege to do whatever they want, whether violence or property destruction.
I recognize I have strong and provocative views about these football games. But I see things most people who enjoy the games are free to walk away from, leaving the clean up of the mess they are part of to somebody else. It has never been lost on me that the large majority of tailgaters are, as I said, affluent white people and the large majority of the people who deal with the mess on campus are lower class minorities. This is one symptom of the culture. I have little patience with that culture's demand for me to oblige its indiscretions.
Certainly we can see elements this one culture of football games has in common with the larger cultures shared among us all. There are parallel ways humans behave when they are put together in groups and when almost all of them are in some stage of intoxication: I immediately know this and intimately so. Law enforcement cannot, and from my political commitments I think it should not, change these conditions producing these cultures. The kind of cultural construction necessary for positive change might, perhaps, begin with something as mundane as changing a kickoff time. I think the changes needed are much deeper and farther reaching, but too many people disagree, and too many people do not see.
Afterall, they don't have to.
.................
Also, about the sidewalk parking: consider that during these times most of the people walking are intoxicated, and many of the people driving are intoxicated, and we see that if the people cannot walk along the sidewalk, they will push out onto the roads. This leads to traffic problems when cars cannot leave the city smoothly and health problems when cars strike various parts of peoples' bodies.
Charles makes an excellent comment regarding the sidewalk parking I had overlooked, so I'll make sure I give him credit for that right up-front.
Two observations I'll make are ...
- Regarding this 'culture of tailgating' ... a lot of this arrogant 'entitlement' stems from the empowerment bestowed on these individuals by the university itself. Lots of affluent white people feel they do have a legitimate right to engage in illegal bevahior primarily because they have had to give ever-increasing amounts of money simply to get tickets. This, as Charles noted, is a false right they feel they possess, but it's one they have nonetheless. To me, part of that is because these people feel they've had to give something significant, so they're entitled to do whatever they please.
- Without taking anything away from Charles's comments, I do think there was a good bit of generalizing involved. As I feel about most situations, you've got a vocal and disruptive minority who ruin it for the rest of the law-abiding folks. I tailgate with a large group of friends who manage to enjoy a few drinks and good food, have a good time, clean up our messes and not cause any disturbances either in or out of the stadium. The same is true for the good folks who typically set up next to us or across from us. Same goes for the folks who sit around The Wife and I at the stadium. And, truth be told, we did have a few instances of individuals in our (fairly large) group who did have too much to drink, but our folks kept a watchful eye on them throughout or didn't let them go to the game. And, truth be told again, I have seen some folks who were obnoxious and unruly, but they were dealt with either by law enforcement or by their own people.
My personal experience and the general experience of many of the people in the (UGA Police) department who have worked football games is that the late kickoff games have far more problems overall than games with earlier kickoffs. I'm sure any county officers you talk with will say the say thing about their experiences. These are not just drunk people problems, although alcohol has so vastly much a part of them. Traffic after night games stalls out much sooner due to the volume of people leaving town, creating far more instances of road rage and aggressive driving along with drunk driving. Athens is simply not designed to handle the volume of traffic it generates on these nights. Pedestrian traffic gets bad, too, forcing people who want to show their butt closer together with people who want to kick some butt.
Increasing the police in the stadium probably will not add to any greater sense of security, but will cause logistical problems. For one, there is only so much radio traffic that can be handled by the several bandwidths used during the games. For another, every officer who works a football game is somebody receiving a paycheck for that service, and our department is already tapped to capacity at each game—each additional officer then has to come from police departments throughout Georgia. We have lately been using more GBI officers, but there has developed something of a history in knowing which departments fit the situation and which don't. To be less vague, there have been cases where officers from departments more used to aggressive law enforcement overstepped constitutional or ethical boundaries in handling people in and around the stadium. So, we don't ask those departments to supply officers anymore, which means fewer places from which to draw people to be in the stadium. As well, all this traffic has to go somewhere, so local agencies have to deal with the expanding effects with what assets they have.
Fundamentally, though, increased officer presense will not decrease the problems in and around the stadium. I attribute this, based on my experiences, to exactly this: "Besides, drinking and football go so well together." The sense of entitlement and privilege the vast majority of tailgaters and stadium guests have to having their alcohol, their football, and their stupid pride creates an entire culture where arrogance and frank criminality are acceptable. I have kicked people out of the stadium who ardently believed they have the right to come to a football game, drink alcoholic beverages they illegally sneak in, show their ass to everyone around them, and continue to stay, and I ought to not only respect their right to do all of these things, but I'm an officious ass for ejecting them from the stadium. These are not isolated instances. Nor should we just think only of what happens at the stadium. The physical state of the campus after the games reveals the rot in the hearts of many of the tailgaters who come to the games to do what they call celebration, but this is not a celebration of the pageantry of a football tradition, rather of the possibility of Bacchanalia and raucous misanthropy, wasteful excess, and criminal depravity. People, during these games, have the chance to do things they otherwise would be arrested or cited for, but because of the limitations of enforcement will be able to do these things with impunity. And as much as there is the sense of 'folks nearby' coming down hard on the obnoxious, such vigilante justice is as much the brutish product of this tailgating culture as any problem it's supposed to be handling. One drunk person beating up on another because the first thinks the other is an ass should not appear to any person as a reasonable or practical way of keeping the peace.
The problem is not quantity of law enforcement, nor is the problem one of its quality. The problem is the ideology at the base of this tailgating culture, where affluent white people think they aren't criminals while breaking various laws because these special days grant them license and further privilege to do whatever they want, whether violence or property destruction.
I recognize I have strong and provocative views about these football games. But I see things most people who enjoy the games are free to walk away from, leaving the clean up of the mess they are part of to somebody else. It has never been lost on me that the large majority of tailgaters are, as I said, affluent white people and the large majority of the people who deal with the mess on campus are lower class minorities. This is one symptom of the culture. I have little patience with that culture's demand for me to oblige its indiscretions.
Certainly we can see elements this one culture of football games has in common with the larger cultures shared among us all. There are parallel ways humans behave when they are put together in groups and when almost all of them are in some stage of intoxication: I immediately know this and intimately so. Law enforcement cannot, and from my political commitments I think it should not, change these conditions producing these cultures. The kind of cultural construction necessary for positive change might, perhaps, begin with something as mundane as changing a kickoff time. I think the changes needed are much deeper and farther reaching, but too many people disagree, and too many people do not see.
Afterall, they don't have to.
.................
Also, about the sidewalk parking: consider that during these times most of the people walking are intoxicated, and many of the people driving are intoxicated, and we see that if the people cannot walk along the sidewalk, they will push out onto the roads. This leads to traffic problems when cars cannot leave the city smoothly and health problems when cars strike various parts of peoples' bodies.
Charles makes an excellent comment regarding the sidewalk parking I had overlooked, so I'll make sure I give him credit for that right up-front.
Two observations I'll make are ...
- Regarding this 'culture of tailgating' ... a lot of this arrogant 'entitlement' stems from the empowerment bestowed on these individuals by the university itself. Lots of affluent white people feel they do have a legitimate right to engage in illegal bevahior primarily because they have had to give ever-increasing amounts of money simply to get tickets. This, as Charles noted, is a false right they feel they possess, but it's one they have nonetheless. To me, part of that is because these people feel they've had to give something significant, so they're entitled to do whatever they please.
- Without taking anything away from Charles's comments, I do think there was a good bit of generalizing involved. As I feel about most situations, you've got a vocal and disruptive minority who ruin it for the rest of the law-abiding folks. I tailgate with a large group of friends who manage to enjoy a few drinks and good food, have a good time, clean up our messes and not cause any disturbances either in or out of the stadium. The same is true for the good folks who typically set up next to us or across from us. Same goes for the folks who sit around The Wife and I at the stadium. And, truth be told, we did have a few instances of individuals in our (fairly large) group who did have too much to drink, but our folks kept a watchful eye on them throughout or didn't let them go to the game. And, truth be told again, I have seen some folks who were obnoxious and unruly, but they were dealt with either by law enforcement or by their own people.
posted by Jmac at 9:26 AM
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