The North Carolina State Fair saw record-breaking 877,939 attendees this year—a crowd large enough to prompt safety concerns.
Durham teenager Jaylan O’Quinn McNair, 16, was stabbed in the back Oct. 17 at the fair, raising safety concerns for large events. Past events like Chapel Hill’s Apple Chill Street Fair were canceled due to violent outbreaks. But Triangle officers noted that safety is a concern any time there are many people in one area, and that proper planning is the best solution.
“Although that one situation was unfortunate, given the amount of people that attended, all in all, I feel like we couldn’t have asked for things to go better,” said Joel Keith, state fairgrounds police chief.
He added that the Oct. 17 incident was between two people who simply did not like each other, resulting in one injured and taken to the hospital. The matter was handled quickly and efficiently and was the only incident at the State Fair this year, Keith said. In 2008, 765,067 people attended the fair and there were no altercations, Keith said. In 2007, with the previous record total of 858,611 attendees, there was one incident where a person was cut.
And in 2006, with 785,956 people in attendance, there were again, no incidents.
“If you have so many people in a certain area there are bound to be some sorts of altercations,” Keith said. “Fortunately, we have enough officers around that can take care of situations that may arise.”
There are approximately 300 officers in the vicinity of the fair, both inside and outside of the fairgrounds, he added. “If they’re going to fight, then they’re going to have to fight with an officer,” Keith said. “We’re in an enclosed compound. The outside is saturated with officers and the inside is also saturated with officers. They know if they act on those feelings of violence they are going to get arrested. It’s just not a good place to go and try to pick a fight.”
Crowd safety concerns
In 2006, Chapel Hill’s annual Apple Chill Street Fair was canceled after several shootings on Franklin Street in 2004 and 2005 after the fair. “Squabbles began to happen just with the large amounts of people,” said Lt. Kevin Gunter, public information specialist for the Chapel Hill Police Department. “Then, alcohol consumption started to happen and over the years crime just started increasing.”
Gunter added that for two to three years, major incidents occurred that were unrelated to Apple Chill itself, but happened to coincide with the day of the festival. Once Apple Chill was canceled, the problems associated with the after-gathering crowd also disappeared.
The annual Halloween night celebration on Franklin Street has also begun raising similar concerns in recent years. As the number of attendees continued increasing from year to year, the city took measures last year to cut down the size of the celebration for a more “Homegrown Halloween.”
“We’ve obviously had a drastic effort to decrease the number of people for our Halloween gathering for safety reasons that come with being able to manage a crowd of that size,” Gunter said. “We wanted people to hear us and they did.”
In 2007, 70,000 to 80,000 people attended Halloween on Franklin Street with a total of 13 arrests, Gunter said. Due to the city’s new measures, 2008 saw a decrease in attendance to 40,000 people and only five arrests were made. This year, 50,000 people attended, with a single arrest.
“In recent years, as the night would progress, we would see gang members moving into the crowds—whether or not they were from Durham or Raleigh—we were seeing a crowd that was not dressed in costume that seemed to be there for different reasons,” Gunter said. “This year we didn’t seem to have that. I don’t know why. I’m not going to single out any particular area out of the Triangle. The temper was just different.”
Kammie Michael, public information officer for the Durham Police Department, explained that safety and traffic are concerns at any large events such as football games, parades, festivals and fireworks celebrations and that officers plan accordingly.
District commanders are notified of large events in their districts so they can work with event organizers to make sure the events are safe, Michael said. She added that off-duty officers are also hired to work at large events and direct traffic.
“The best way to preserve the peace is to have a good, solid plan in place and to have enough officers working at the event,” she said.
Jim Sughrue, public information officer for the Raleigh Police Department, explained that it may not be possible to prevent acts of violence because they can occur rather quickly and sporadically. But he noted that RPD puts a lot of work in organizing law enforcement presence and planning that would minimize the chance of incidents.
“We always encourage people whether they’re at an event or going about their daily lives to be aware of their surroundings,” Sughrue said. “It is easy to get lost in what someone is doing and not pay attention to people getting close to you or getting into a situation where your safety is compromised. We encourage people to be very careful because obviously the police can’t be everywhere.”
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