Fight night

New Years Eve was quite a wild ride.  We responded to a total of 40 assaults on December 31st and January 1st.  That’s an unusually large number.  Of particular note were bar fights. 

The first was at the Main Street Café, where a drunken 24 year old patron was being ejected by the staff after being denied service.  He allegedly engaged in some fisticuffs with the staff, earning a night in jail. 

Next was Red 9, where a fight broke out between two customers.  During the fracas, the primary assailant allegedly pulled a knife and stabbed the victim, along with his buddy who tried to break things up.  A second interventionist was allegedly slugged and kicked, and a staff member was bit.  But it wasn’t over.  With two stabbings, a portion of the bar quickly became a crime scene, and the revelers had to be removed.  During the attempt to clear the area out, a 66 year old patron, angry that he couldn’t cross through the area to retrieve his coat,   allegedly grabbed a police officer’s gun, lost the scuffle, and spent the night in jail charged with assaulting a police officer.

While a bunch of officers were dealing with the investigation of the Red 9 stabbings, another assault occurred at the Fat Toad, where a greeting to a girlfriend by a stranger was not well received by a boyfriend, and a punch in the face followed.  Differing accounts of the events led to the officers declining to make any arrests, however. 

Still investigating the Red 9 affair, we were dispatched to the Keg, on a report of a fight involving 10-15 people.  Sorting who-did-what-to-whom was rather difficult, but one assailant went to jail, and we are looking for a second who had the good sense to leave before we arrived.  The last victim walked into police headquarters at 10:40 AM to report that she had been assaulted during the fight at the Keg.  She apparently caught a little shut-eye before reporting her victimization. 

All of these bar fights occurred within a 45-minute period.  Mind you, this is only the bar fights.  During the same stretch, we ran on three other assaults at residences, in addition to two traffic crashes, one drunk, a burglary, seven disturbances, a traffic hazard, a telephone offense, a check welfare, and two drunk drivers. 

Interestingly, all of the bar fights occurred after 1:00 AM.  Last year, the bars would have been closed.  Hard to say that they are related to the later closing time, though.  It is possible that the same fights would have occurred an hour earlier last year.