Department of Public Safety Captain Ed Rinne was walking along the upper stands of Autzen Stadium’s student section at Saturday’s football game against the Stanford Cardinals when a young man hanging from the railing questioned him.
“Hey man!” the individual said in a drunken drawl. “If I jump off the railing what’s going to happen to me? What are you going to do?”
“Well,” Rinne said, “you’re probably going to be injured and you’re going to be ejected from the game for being disorderly. You won’t see the rest of the game.”
“Thanks man, good to know!” the man responded excitedly.
In addition to his regular campus duties, Rinne overseas DPS’s game day operations at Duck football home games. This is a large-scale event for DPS and includes 36 of its officers working in conjunction with personnel from the Eugene Police Department and Lane County Sheriff’s Office.
In addition to providing security and safety operations for Autzen Stadium, DPS is also responsible for PK Park, Riverfront Path and Dave and Lynn Frohnmayer Pedestrian and Bicycle Bridge areas between the main campus and the sporting complex sites along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
DPS, along with its other law enforcement agency partners, is primarily responsible with dealing with alcohol control and the issues traditionally arising from its consumption. These operations start at the front gates of Autzen Stadium, where DPS serves in a backup role to the crowd management service personnel scanning identification cards and checking for individuals bringing alcohol into the premises. DPS backs up crowd management services as flasks are opened, spirits are poured out and, in some cases, fans are ejected.
Under NCAA regulations, alcohol is not allowed to be brought in and served at sporting events. This excludes tailgating areas and licensed areas such as the Moshofsky Center.
In addition to uniformed personnel at Saturday’s game, DPS also had three plainclothes officers to spot individuals who looked like they might be bringing in alcohol from nearby parked cars and tailgating areas, and hiding it somewhere on their person. The plainclothes officers then radioed this information into DPS personnel working the gate areas.
“We eject a lot for alcohol and fake IDs being used with student tickets,” said DPS Patrol Officer Chris Phillips, standing outside of Autzen Stadium’s south gate. “If someone needs ejection, we’ll take care of that.”
Atop the south side of Autzen Stadium in a row of booths traditionally reserved for media and VIPs sits a booth reserved for DPS and its partner agencies.
From this vantage point, DPS, EPD and the Eugene Fire and EMS Department post representatives to coordinate responses to medical and security issues. From here, they have a great view of the playing field and most of the stands, particularly the student sections.
Law enforcement officials look out over the stadium with binoculars and maintain a call center there to monitor and route in-house radio transmissions.
The student sections and their management would come into prominent play as the Stanford game went on.
The student section had quickly become overcrowded following the scheduled 5 p.m. kick-off time. Students would briefly leave their seats to use restrooms or get concessions and find their seats taken upon return.
“I’m paying $80 for tickets that my tuition should be paying for anyway,” University senior Taylor Hinshaw said. “When I get back, my seat is completely gone and taken by someone who didn’t pay, and the cops aren’t letting me back in.”
An unorganized crowd had grown after the first quarter as students couldn’t get back into their sections because of over-packed seating.
DPS’s response to the crowd was organizing a line that hugged the back row of the student section and allowing students to enter one by one as other spectators got up and vacated their seats.
Besides crowd control and alcohol, at least five fights broke out in conjunction with the game, with many of them at PK Park.
One well-viewed altercation took place outside the north gate along the sidewalk and MLK Boulevard, near the beginning of the second half.
DPS Lieutenant Casey Boyd stood at the top of the north side of the stadium while looking out at the sidewalk and coordinated police response as EPD actively worked to clear and control the fight from the ground.
“Fights are going to happen, and we sort of expect that kind of thing,” Boyd said.
At the end of the night’s activities, just before 10 p.m., the game’s DPS crew had settled down into a somewhat jovial atmosphere as they discussed the Ducks’ 52-31 win and an unofficial mustache-growing competition amongst DPS officers.
DPS Chief Doug Tripp finally arrived on the scene and said he was more than pleased with the night’s overall operations. He quickly cited that the way DPS performed alongside other law enforcement agencies as a sign that his department is ready to assume full sworn police department responsibilities.
“What I see, and what every other agency here tonight is seeing, is that an emerging law enforcement agency is occurring, right here in Lane County,” Tripp said.
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