In the midst of Starkville”s busy end-of-the-school-year party season, the Starkville Police Department refuses to get caught sleeping.
“We might go overboard, but we”re not going to be unprepared,” said Sgt. Landon Stamps, the SPD”s shift sergeant on duty Friday night.
Stamps granted a ride-along to The Dispatch during the busiest hours of Friday night”s kick-off to Blue and White Weekend. The Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity event is one of a string of annual spring weekend party events, preceded by Super Bulldog Weekend and followed by the Cotton District Arts Festival and graduation weekend.
Along Main Street, where revelers packed the sidewalks and congregated in front of bars such as the State Theater and Level III, the SPD devoted a detail of four officers and four cruisers, with the cruisers parked in the center turn lane, to patrol the street until the crowds dispersed.
Stamps, who has been with the SPD since 2006, said there”s no telling how many fights and various incidents the visible police presence prevented. In fact, that presence may have been the key factor in a relatively quiet night.
The SPD had a busy day dealing with heavy storms Friday, but Starkville escaped unscathed with the exception of some scattered flooding.
Presiding over the 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift, Stamps prepared for the late night hours by catching up on some paperwork in his office. As shift sergeant, he”s sworn in as a deputy court clerk and must sign every ticket and report after officers swear to the accuracy of said reports. The paperwork takes time that Stamps, who has worked in every division of the SPD, would rather spend patrolling.
Although more than 10 officers were on the road, including a special DUI detail, Stamps was eager to hit the pavement.
Between traffic stops, he explained the mechanics of interacting with drivers. He delivers the same script each time he pulls a car over to make sure he provides all the necessary details to the driver, but also to allow him to focus his attention elsewhere.
“The spotlight in the mirror, there”s a reason for that,” he said, explaining that officers use a car”s side mirrors to see into the vehicle while standing alongside.
“We don”t walk past the column (between the car”s front and back windows). There”s a reason for that,” he continued, stating the vantage point allows him to inspect the whole interior of the vehicle without exposing himself to potential harm.
“There”s a reason cops do those things. It”s not to be a (jerk),” said Stamps.
Moments later on Highway 12, he stops a gray Ford Expedition with a Mississippi professional hair designer license plate. Stamps witnessed the Expedition swerve into the fog line two times before turning sharply into the Holiday Inn Express, meeting his criteria for careless driving.
“One violation is an accident. Twice is coincidence. Three times is careless,” he explained.
The driver of the Expedition is sober but has missed a recent court appearance, which will likely double the fine for the careless driving citation Stamps issues.
On a subsequent pass through downtown, during which Stamps lamented the number auto burglaries in the Cotton District due to unlocked car doors, he passes the DUI detail, which has hit its blue lights to pull over a white pickup truck. Stamps turns around to follow and assist the DUI detail, which stops behind the truck at the corner of Washington Street and Highway 182. While the DUI officers deal with the driver of the truck in the parking lot of a beauty supply shop, Stamps notices a Nissan Xterra pull up to the intersection with no headlights on and walks over to ask the driver to pull in to the parking lot.
The driver of the gray Xterra, which sports a Sigma Chi sticker on the back windshield, claims he”s had one beer and a breathalyzer test proves he”s under the legal limit, and the slow night continues.
As 1 a.m. approaches and the bars prepare to let out, Stamps predicts the massive crowds will spill out onto Main Street and linger. At this point, officers have already blocked off two blocks of Main Street, from Jackson Street to Washington Street, to traffic in anticipation of the crowds.
In the past, Stamps said the crowds have been uncooperative when asked to clear the street, forcing the SPD to devise a method of clearing the area peacefully.
The solution, he said, is simply to pull a squad car into the crowd and flip on the siren.
“If you can”t hear your cell phone, you”ll leave,” he said.
That wasn”t necessary Friday as the crowds never became unruly. Stamps pulled up to the intersection of Main Street and Lafayette Street around 1:10 a.m. and began asking pedestrians to move from the street to the sidewalks.
“Make conversation out of it. Make a joke out of it. There”s no need to be rude,” he explained as he walked down the street. “You”ve got to get out of your car and talk to people.”
Following the bar rush, Stamps said police calls remained “steady” through Friday night and again Saturday night, but with no felony offenses or arrests.
Jason Browne was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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