Police use undercover officers
• - • -* /- « . T
to fight partv-related crimes
UNDERCOVER from page 1
Spreading the word
And people were definitely out
there Friday night. The North Bottoms
area, where many UNL students rent
apartments and houses, was crowded
with party goers.
Jackson said police are alerted to
parties by calls from citizens and by
scouting out hard-partying neighbor
hoods like the North Bottoms early in
the evening.
For veteran officers like Jackson
and JeffUrkevich, the signs of a grow
ing party are obvious. Normally empty
streets are packed with parked cars, and
lawns are littered with beer cans or plas
tic cups.
But the most obvious sign of a party
on its way to losing control is its size,
Jackson said.
Jackson said parties are a “gateway”
to other offenses. Out-of-control par
ties, Jackson said, can often result in
assaults, theft and a host of other crimes.
These crimes are more likely to
occur when people unknown to the
hosts attend the party, Jackson said.
“You get these groups of individuals
who create havoc and then walk away
laughing as the resident gets a ticket for
creating a disturbance,” Jackson said.
“The only way to combat that is for
residents to say (to unknown guests)
‘hey, this is a private party.’”
To reinforce the danger unknown
guests represent to large parties, under
cover police officers are often sent into
parties.
Undercover
Once inside a party, undercover
officers try to buy alcohol from the
party hosts, confirming the house is
selling alcohol without a liquor license.
The officers ascertain who collects
the money and where it is held. The offi
cers also seek out other offenses, such as
individuals urinating in public and
smoking marijuana.
Undercover officers who enter par
ties are supported by uniformed officers
outside. After the undercover officers
have gathered enough evidence to issue
citations, uniformed officers are called
in, and the party is busted.
Various officers are asked to per
form undercover work. Officer M.
McGuire, who worked undercover
Friday, said being female helped her
pass as a genuine partygoer.
“Most people don’t think of a
woman when they think of a police offi
cer. They think of an older man,”
McGuire said.
Undercover police officers are
under no obligation to announce their
presence even if confronted by other
partiers, Urkevich said.
Undercover officers entered eight
parties. The officers were unable to pur
chase beer at any of the parties and said
they were either not charged or the
party’s keg was dead.
u—
We aren’t here to make sure you don’t have
a fun school year”
Jeff Urkevich
Lincoln police officer
To cite someone for selling liquor
without a license, police must purchase
alcohol at the parties.
Undercover officers entered one
party but left shortly after because the
party’s keg was empty.
But later, Urkevich responded to a
complaint made by a neighbor and
knocked on the home’s front and garage
doors several times. While Urkevich
was trying to get someone to open the
door, die party’s host, fifth-year history
major Marty Toalson, arrived after
returning a keg.
After agreeing to end the party,
Toalson opened the garage door to his
home, releasing a cloud of cigarette
smoke and about 60 people. Half-empty
cups of beer littered the garage.
At its height, Toalson estimated the
party’s size at between 150 and 200 peo
ple and said he knew about half of his
guests. When Urkevich arrived, the
party was halfway through its third keg.
Toalson said he had held parties
many times before and had dealt with
police. He said he remembered
Urkevich from parties in previous years.
“A lot of times when you’re dealing
with officers, they’ll give you the bene
fit of the doubt,” Toalson said.
Toalson added the evening had been
a profitable one.
A dorm without RAs
Police also paid close attention to
the Claremont Apartments, 1341 N.
Ninth St., where many UNL students
live. Several small parties were under
way in the complex Friday night
although none became out of control.
Senior business administration
major Dan Niles was at a party contact
ed by Urkevich.
“People are toning it down a bit,”
Niles said. “LPD usually shows up to
any decent party. They gotta do what
they gotta do. For the most part, they
just want to make sure everyone is safe.”
Earlier in the evening, Niles said he
had, on a bet, run naked through the
apartment building’s lawn.
“It’s the start of the school year,”
Niles said. “A guy’s gotta do it. And $45
is a lot of money.”
Relations between officers and par
tygoers were positive throughout the
night.
“That’s the thing. A lot of people
party in Lincoln. You just aren’t a jerk
about it,” Urkevich said. “We don’t want
to just barge into your house. We aren’t
here to make sure you don’t have a fun
school year.”
If the hosts of a party do not cooper
ate with police once contacted, citations
are often given.
Party-related citations can be mis
demeanors such as maintaining a disor
derly house, minor in possession of
alcohol, urinating in public, selling
liquor without a license or procuring
alcohol for minors.
Particularly uncooperative partiers
can be dealt with harshly.
“People think you can’t go to jail for
this,” Urkevich said. “It’s a misde
meanor just like any misdemeanor, and
a misdemeanor can be a jailable
offense.”
“We try to make it as punitive as
possible just so some sort of lesson can
be learned,” Jackson said.
Legal punishment, however, repre
sents only one hazard partiers face. A
UNL student was taken from campus to
BryanLGH West on Friday night for
alcohol-poisoning treatment after a sus
pected night of drinking.
University Police responded to a
call in a residence hall room in Selleck
Quadrangle at 1:23 a.m. where
University Police Sgt. Mylo Bushing
said a male student was found passed
out on his room’s floor.
Bushing said officers on the scene
found the student had vomited on him
self, the floor and his bed. Bushing said
the student had cut his forearm and
bruised his left cheek. The student told
officers he suffered the injuries in a fall.
After the student faded in and out of
consciousness, Bushing said the student
was taken to the hospital.
Then and now
Police hope this focused enforce
ment will diminish party complaints
again this year.
Casady said undercover officers
working Friday night overheard many
students expressing concern over the
increased police presence at parties.
“I think (the increased police pres
ence) will cause people to be less likely
to break the law when they have a party,”
Casady said.
Casady said university students
were only part of Lincoln’s party prob
lem.
Statistics from last year’s party
detail revealed a laige number of parties
contacted by police were held by high
school students and adults unrelated to
the university.
This fact was surprising to some
officers on the party detail.
“If you had asked me (if non-univer
sity partygoers required more police
attention than UNL students) last year,
before we started doing the details, I
would’ve said no,” Jackson said.
Analysts predict
interest-rate hike
■ They say question is
now whether another rise
will follow in the fall.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal
Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s
pledge to move “promptly and force
fully” to counter inflationary threats
has analysts convinced the central
bank will boost interest rates today for
the second time in eight weeks.
But the real question may be what
happens after that. Will Fed policy
makers see enough signs of a slow
down in economic growth that they
won’t feel the need to boost rates even
higher in the fall?
, Wall Street on Monday was clear
ly taking the view that today’s rate hike
will be all the Fed needs to contain the
inflation threat. Investors pushed stock
prices into record territory, up by more
than 100 points in afternoon trading.
But private analysts cautioned that
this market euphoria may be overdone.
They noted that while the economy
has slowed in recent months, it is still
expected to grow almost 4 percent this
year, a robust rate that has pushed
unemployment down to its lowest level
in three decades and left the Fed wor
rying about rising wage pressures.
“The Fed is fearful that the econo
my is expanding too strongly, that
labor markets are too tight and that
inflationary pressures will develop if
things don’t slow down,” said econo
mist Mark Zandi at Regional Financial
Associates in West Chester, Pa.
Zandi said he believed the Fed
would raise rates not only this week,
but again at its next meeting Oct. 5.
And he predicted the central bank
would likely hint at future moves in its
rate announcement in part to toss cold
water on an overly optimistic stock
market.
“I think these stock market highs
are of concern to the Fed,” Zandi said.
Much of the strong consumer spend
ing driving the economy, he said, is
coming because consumers feel
wealthy thanks to investment gains.
Part of the market’s confusion over
Fed intentions may stem from botched
signals by the central bank, some ana
lysts believe.
On June 30, the Fed boosted its tar
get for the federal funds rate, the inter
est banks charge on overnight loans,
by a quarter-point to 5 percent, the first
increase in two years.
While the markets had widely
expected that rate hike, the Fed
announced at the same time that it was
moving its policy directive, which
foreshadows future moves, back to
neutral.
Markets, which had feared the
June 30 rate hike would be just the first
in a series, rallied on the Fed’s
announcement of the neutral policy
directive. That boosted stock prices
back up and pushed down long-term
interest rates, which are market-set.
“I think the Fed completely mis
read the potential market response to a
shift back to a neutral bias,” said David
Jones, economist at Aubrey G.
Lanston & Co. in New York.
Delivering his midyear report on
the economy to Congress on July 22,
Greenspan said the Fed was still pre
pared to move “promptly and forceful
ly” to counter inflation, remarks taken
as strongly signaling a rate hike at their
August meeting.
In all of this maneuvering, the Fed
is walking a delicate line. Greenspan
has been worrying since December
1996 about “irrational exuberance”
pushing stock prices too high. At that
time, the Dow was hovering around
6,500, and it’s gone up by 70 percent
since then.
But while Greenspan and other
Fed policy-makers are clearly nervous
that stock prices are inflated and could
suddenly come crashing to earth, they
don’t want to be blamed for causing
that by pushing interest rates higher
than necessary to deal with the prob
lem the Fed is supposed to worry about
- inflation.
“The Fed doesn’t want to cause a
recession, they just want to make sure
that inflation doesn’t get out of hand,”
said David Wyss, economist at
Standard & Poor’s DRI.
Many see the Fed’s goal this year
as taking away the stimulus it provided
last fall when it cut interest rates three
times to counter a growing threat that
the Asian crisis could topple the
United States into a recession.
Fed critics contend the world is
still in too fragile a state to embark on
a series of rate hikes, especially with
American manufacturers and farmers
struggling to cope with lost export
markets.
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