Belleville police report late fights at downtown festivals, wants them closed earlier
As Belleville police officers deal with an increase in large, late-night fights and unruly crowds of youths at downtown street festivals in recent years, they’ve pushed for the city to force the events to close at 9 p.m. instead of the traditional 11 p.m.
Police Chief Bill Clay presented his case before the City Council telling members that large groups of teenagers use social media to marshal their forces for fights that are recorded for posting on the internet or “planned stampedes,” where a group runs breakneck through a festival.
Two festivals were specifically cited in police department memos about the issue — Oktoberfest and Chili Cook-off.
After hearing from Clay and festival organizers, the council voted 8-5 on Monday night to keep the current hours.
Mayor Patty Gregory supported Clay’s plan and said she was “disappointed” with the vote.
“I always believe that our police officers and fire department really know more about public safety than the rest of us do,” she said in an interview after the meeting. “I was disappointed because I believe in supporting the people who take care of us.”
Council votes
Gregory did not have a vote on this issue because the mayor only votes if the council has a tie vote that needs to be broken.
Here’s how the City Council voted:
Keep the 11 p.m. closing time: Joe Hazel and Bryan Whitaker of Ward 1; Carmen Duco and Jamie Eros of Ward 2; Scott Ferguson and Kent Randle of Ward 3; Chris Rothweiler of Ward 6 and Nora Sullivan of Ward 8.
Move to a 9 p.m. closing time: Johnnie Anthony of Ward 4; Shelly Schaefer of Ward 5; Mary Stiehl of Ward 6; Phil Elmore of Ward 7; and Roger Wigginton of Ward 8.
Absent for the vote: Raffi Ovian of Ward 4; Ed Dintelman of Ward 5; and Dennis Weygandt of Ward 7.
Wigginton supported the proposed policy change and said “if somebody gets shot this summer” that the council will regret not being more proactive.
“Somewhere along the line, some council is going to have to step up to the plate, whether it’s us or somebody else, and they’re going to have to make this decision,” he told the council.
“What went on at these events 20 years ago is so different than what goes on now,” he said. “People were held accountable back then. You were held responsible for your actions. Back then if you got in trouble at one of these events, you went home and got into bigger trouble with your parents.”
Festival organizers
Marcus Barriger, who told the council that he serves on the Oktoberfest Committee, opposed the earlier closing time.
“I’ve worked in the education field for the past 15 years, Juvenile behavior does not have a time frame,” he read from a prepared statement. “It happens when it happens.
“You can shift the dynamics, you can make it more difficult and you can move the goalposts but the reality is that until you fix the root of the problem, you’re just putting a Band-Aid on hopes that it will hold.
“I’m not denying that there is a problem,” Barriger said. “I believe Chief Clay and his department. What I do not believe is that by changing the closing time that this will fix the problem. I believe the problem will still exist on another street, another part of town or another city and in the end all we’ve done is taken away from the city and the organizations, the vendors, the charities and the businesses.”
Ron Wodarczyk, president of the Exchange Club of Belleville, which co-sponsors the Oktoberfest, told the aldermen that Oktoberfest is his club’s only fundraiser.
The club, which has a budget of $17,000, puts the money to a variety of uses, including Christmas baskets for the needy and a scholarship at Southwestern Illinois College for students studying counseling.
Wodarczyk urged the council to keep Oktoberfest “open as long as possible.”
Police statistics
Police Capt. Todd Keilbach prepared a report for Clay about the crimes at festivals and noted that all of the “fights and significant disturbances” have occurred after 9 p.m. in the past six to seven years. The only exception was 2020, when the large festivals were canceled because of the COVID pandemic.
In 2018 at the Oktoberfest, there was a “large fight involving juveniles” and four officers were injured.
After a group of juveniles were disbursed at the Oktoberfest this past fall, Keilbach said a group of 400 youths relocated to Fairview Heights, where there was a “large disturbance and fight.” Keilbach said a school resource officer later learned that this “fight would have happened at the Oktoberfest.”
Thirty-eight officers were on duty during the Chili Cook-off this past fall and “one of the nights during this event had to be shut down early due to foreseeable juvenile issues,” his memo stated.
“I have talked to numerous members of the Command Staff who have worked these events, and the overwhelming response by all those who have worked is that the events need to be closed at or before 9 p.m.,” Keilbach wrote in his report.
Clay sent Gregory a memo last month outlining the department’s request to close the street festivals at 9 p.m.
“They cluster in large crowds and segregate themselves from other event participants,” Clay said of the youths. “We have seen flash fights and other acts of violence and disorder erupt within such groups.
“Many onlookers are there to video record the violence and upload it to some social media site,” he wrote. “These planned disruptions of violence can be greatly reduced or eliminated by earlier closing times.”
Clay told the City Council that officers have deployed a number of tactics to provide security at the festivals.
The department has purchased additional barricades, lighting towers and GoPro cameras equipped with extension sticks so the crowd can see they are being recorded.
Asset forfeiture funds were used to pay for the city’s share of the costs.
Officers also have asked downtown businesses to turn off their public access Wi-Fi.
“We realized that a lot of the participants come down and they use the free, public access Wi-Fi and they’re making their plans on the phone,” Clay said.
“We wanted to disrupt them.”
Clay said the police don’t have the staffing to conduct “mass arrests.”
He also said parents tell the police “Their kid did no wrong.”
“Parents come in and they curse us out,” Clay said.
