By Jenny Price, The Associated Press
MADISON, Wisc. (AP) - City officials defended using pepper spray to clear Halloween revelers from downtown Madison early Sunday after some in the crowd started a fire.
For the third year in a row, the annual celebration on State Street near the University of Wisconsin-Madison devolved into violence.
“We’ve got a core group of people who are determined to have a riot,” Police Chief Noble Wray said during a Sunday news conference.
City leaders tried to keep the event from becoming a destination for troublemakers and were furious about the attention it received from national publications, including Sports Illustrated On Campus.
Officers arrested about 450 people between Friday night and early Sunday morning, mostly for city ordinance violations; one-third of them were from outside Wisconsin.
UW-Madison chancellor John Wiley said just under 13 percent of those arrested during the weekend were UW-Madison students.
The crowd peaked at more than 75,000 shortly after midnight - 10,000 more than last year - for the annual party that attracted college students from as far away as California, as well as those from Wisconsin. At 1:30 a.m., about 5,000 people remained in one block of State Street, police said.
As police on horseback tried to disperse the crowd, some partygoers ignited garbage on the street and others began throwing pieces of their costumes and other debris into the flames, authorities said.
Meanwhile, others had started fights, began body passing people, punched the horses, threw objects and set off firecrackers and smoke bombs. Firefighters who arrived to put out the fire were harassed, according to Mayor Dave Cieslewicz.
By 4 a.m., most people had left the State Street area after police used the pepper spray on the crowd. Between 15 and 20 people were treated for exposure, but police reported no significant injuries.
“We were very close to something very tragic happening,” Wray said.
Richard Bennett, 20, Oxford, who came to Madison to take part in the Halloween festivities with a group of friends, said he felt the police using pepper spray was unprovoked by the crowd.
“I think they just make it worse,” he said.
Cieslewicz, who witnessed the scene, defended the use of pepper spray.
“It was very clear the crowd needed to be dispersed very quickly,” he said. “It was not in any way a lightly taken decision.”
Wray said the only property damage in the State Street area was three broken or cracked windows.
One Madison police officer suffered a dislocated finger and a Wisconsin state trooper was taken to the hospital after an apparent heart attack, Wray said.
Police took extra precautions after Halloween revelers last year smashed storefront windows and more than 300 people were cited for various violations, including underage drinking and disorderly conduct.
Officers had a live camera feed at their command post to help them monitor the crowd and used truck-mounted stadium lights to try to break up the crowd. The city also increased fines for certain violations including disorderly conduct and illegal alcohol sales, in an effort to discourage rioting.
Cieslewicz said the city will need to take additional steps next year.
“It is time to face up to the fact that we may need to shift city policy from welcoming Halloween on State Street and trying to manage it, to actively discouraging the event,” he said. “I have had enough of the black eye these disturbances give to the reputation of our city.”