MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Police activity increased around 40 percent during the period of time where WVU students began returning in large numbers to Morgantown.
Morgantown Police Chief Ed Preston released the available data from the period of August 9 through August 20, which included more than 2,700 calls for service over the 12-day period.
“For the entire month of July, we had 5,018 calls for service for the entire month,” he said. “All 31 days.”
Comparatively speaking, city officers responded to about 162 calls per day during the month of July. During the 12-day period noted here, police responded to around 227 calls per day.
“One thing that was kind of disturbing that went up this year was the number of arrests,” he said. “We almost doubled the number of arrests from the same time frame last year.”
In total, 179 criminal citations were handed out. 57 people were arrested.
Preston did say, comparatively speaking, this is still an improvement for the city of Morgantown, which has endured it’s annual doubling of population with varying results.
“Credit where credit is due: the university has taken away the emphasis on alcohol-related events for the welcome back to school,” Preston said. “They no longer have the big Mountainlair party with alcohol sales at the party. They’ve moved things to the Evansdale Campus — no alcohol allowed.”
Police presence and strategy have changed, allowing officers to be more responsive to potential problems downtown. Preston cited a street brawl that he believes could have been much worse in downtown Morgantown last weekend had officers not been in position to respond instantaneously.
“It’s not a free for all by any means,” he said. “As soon as it happened, officers were able to respond and deal with it. That’s the thing: we can’t stop people from making bad decisions. But, we try very, very hard to break them of the habit.”
Ranked second in the country for Princeton Review’s annual list of “Biggest Party School” rankings, Preston said he was confident that the ratings ‘were not scientific’ and that Morgantown and WVU’s reputation for hard partying was overblown.