Saying the Pullman Police Department is understaffed and overworked should win the ‘Understatement of the Year Award,’ as the PPD had just 28 officers rotating duties last weekend.

On Friday and Saturday nights, the local police department phone lines flooded with never-ending incidents – hardly out of the ordinary when Halloween and a home football weekend coincide – where the inebriated sprinkled College Hill in more frequency than shards of broken glass.

Census Reports suggest the Pullman population to be around 31,395 on a normal day, and let’s boost that to at least 32,000 for game day, leaving 1,143 people per one police officer.

From lessor crimes – like people taking a whiz on the front lawns of dark houses, jaywalking and littering – all the way up to more serious offenses – like minors in possession (MIP), driving under the influence (DUI) of drugs and alcohol, brandishing a weapon, being arrested for a pre-existing warrant, rape and arrest for domestic disputes – our beloved town on Halloween night was nothing short of chaotic.

But, more alarming than the fact there was a male entering parties with a gun over the weekend, is this: what do you do when you report the possibility of someone needing help, like being drunk in the middle of the road, but, the police never show because they were too busy waiting for Emergency Medical Services (EMS) to transport an unconscious person to the hospital or trying to break up a bar fight?

Of course the Pullman Police do the best job they can with every penny of resources they are allocated, but after witnessing firsthand the chaos that is College Hill on Halloween night, there has to be a better way of keeping students safe and also helping people who just need to get home.

There are many ways the university, city and student community can pull together to address some of these deep concerns.

For example, on known party weekends, perhaps the Pullman Police Department could partner together with other police departments, or opt for a volunteer police force where retired officers across the state can choose to come here just for these peak weekends.

The city could offer those volunteers overnight lodgings, breakfast and coffee, game tickets or other reasonable items in return for their service on high-volume nights.

The take-home here is we need to work together to keep each other safe.

The city and the university could pull together to have regular bus services on selected nights so that during peak ‘drunk’ hours, 11 p.m. until 3 a.m., members of the community don’t try to drive or walk home in the cold while intoxicated.

There are a few options, including women’s transit, which is limited; walking; getting behind the wheel of a car; or waiting hours for a taxi ride, none of which is an ultimate solution to the problem.

Buses could do runs from ‘Apartment Land’ to specific destinations during the 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. window.

Social responsibility for these issues does fall in part on the university because they are supposed to look after the students – granted it is in more of a 9-to-5 kind of way, but no one talks about what happens after dark.

Since this town would be a speck on the map without the university, there is an inherent relationship of care built into the social surroundings that keep this place together.

Obviously, the university doesn’t have the authority to shut down parties off campus, and it shouldn’t, but it could help facilitate a larger, more constructed event.

The issue is the number of incidents in such a short window puts a crippling amount of pressure on local law enforcement and limited EMS.

Many resources can be pooled together in order to accomplish the goal of keeping students and citizens safe during these high-traffic times.

We can make the optical haze, slurred speech and the Jack Sparrow-like staggering into an event called the College Hill Halloween Block Party and charge everyone $5 to cover clean-up and security check points.

That way, when people wander around drunk, there are plenty of police, plenty of EMS and plenty of good times, without the high risks of MIP, DUI and hit-and-runs.

Jorden Wilson is a senior psychology major from Seattle. She can be contacted at 335-2290 or by [email protected]. The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the staff of The Daily Evergreen or those of the Office of Student Media.