Kent Police prepare for College Fest Round 2

Cody Francis

For the third weekend in a row, the Kent Police department will have extra forces out because of a block party.

Following College Fest, Shermania and Drinkin’ on Lincoln, “College Fest Round 2” is scheduled to take place tomorrow on College Avenue.

Ryan Katz, an administrator on the party’s Facebook event, said the event was somehow deleted after a couple other administrators were removed, but the event is still taking place. Before the event was deleted, there were more than 4,000 people who confirmed they were attending.

Lt. Jayme Cole of the Kent Police department said they plan on having the same amount of officers on duty for this weekend’s block party as they have for the parties the past two weekends.

Before the first College Fest, Cole said 42 officers were going to be working and officers from the Kent State and Brimfield police as well as the Portage County Sheriff’s Office were on call.

Last weekend, Cole said the police experienced only minor problems during Shermania and Drinkin’ on Lincoln, but that’s because the parties were spread out over a couple streets. This weekend, however, Cole said he isn’t sure what to expect, considering College Fest’s history.

“Any time there are larger scale parties like this, there is a component of people who attend who don’t have the right intent in mind to begin with,” Cole said. “They are hoping to initiate some sort of reaction by the police department. That’s nothing new. We expect that and we prepare to deal with those kinds of folks.”

Cole said he knows the majority of people going to the party are “law-abiding, peaceful and have no intention of doing anything illegal,” but the police department must prepare for the minority of people who can incite the crowd.

Cole called on the responsible party attendees to not just sit back and “watch the show.”

Contact public affairs reporter Cody Francis at [email protected].