With Halloween falling between two busy weekends on the University of New Hampshire (UNH) campus, UNH Police Chief Paul Dean and Durham Police Captain David Holmstock spoke about the preparations for the Student Committee on Popular Entertainment (SCOPE) Playboi Carti concert last weekend, and their upcoming preparations for Halloween Trick-or-Treating in Durham and Halloween this weekend.
Last weekend, his department prepared for the Playboi Carti SCOPE concert.
“We have decades of history partnering with SCOPE,” Dean said. “My team has regular meetings with the SCOPE leadership team and other campus stakeholders to ensure we have a safe and enjoyable event.”
Dean said that SCOPE continues to put on concerts with few issues and that nothing unexpected occurred. Dean said that they also had increased staffing for the concert and campus patrol shifts. He said that there was a total of 19 arrests. UNH police were more involved in the SCOPE concert than the Durham police department, according to Holmstock, because it was a university event, but said he thought it went relatively smoothly “other than the act not showing up on time.”
The town of Durham already did their afternoon Halloween event, according to Holmstock, and they are planning to post for extra officers on Thursday, Friday and Saturday to make sure everything goes smoothly in Durham. He said that sometimes there are more people on campus during Halloween weekend because it attracts people from other places to visit UNH.
“We will have extra patrols and be visible throughout campus,” Dean said in preparation for Halloween Trick-or-Treating and Halloween parties on the weekend.
When asked about which areas the police department focuses on having officers at to avoid any problems, Dean said that “we will have officers riding transit buses and stationed throughout campus and on patrol.” When asked if they are utilizing any outside resources for next weekend because there might be Halloween parties, Dean said, “we are finalizing our planning and, if necessary, have support from our public safety partners. Dean also said that they have “a busy weekend with a home football game and hockey game,” and that they will have extra staff around to “ensure a safe and successful weekend.”
In regards to the Durham bars this weekend, Holmstock said that if the lines start to get long, they’ll station more officers and continue to monitor it. He said that they will post for more officers in their department, which will count as overtime for the officers. Holmstock said that he anticipates that they will be able to fill all of the spots that they need to, and that they’re usually “at the mercy” of how many officers they have.
Holmstock said that it’s possible that there might be Halloween parties and more noise complaints during the upcoming weekend, but he doesn’t anticipate any problems. He said that it’s been a relatively quiet year at UNH and in the past years at UNH it has also been pretty quiet and without many problems. Holmstock thinks that the UNH students will maintain their good behavior.
