Keep Out

Around 1:20 a.m. on Sunday, Sept. 17, campus police issued three UWS Tampering with Security Devices/Physical Security Compliance citations for subjects entering the construction zone on campus and an Underage Drinking-First Offence citation.

An officer was parked on Putnam Drive just south of Garfield Avenue and was watching the live video feed from the UW-Eau Claire website that shows a view from the roof of Schofield Hall.

According the report, the officer was able to see a live video of the south end of the footbridge, where he observed four people walk off the footbridge onto the new sidewalk.

The group of people paused there for a while and it appeared one person had tried to climb over the fencing between the sidewalk and the construction area where Garfield Avenue used to be.

They then walked back onto the south end of the bridge and the officer observed the subjects beginning to climb the fence on the west side of the sidewalk.

According to the report, the officer exited his squad car and stood at the bottom of the Garfield Avenue hill, just outside the fenced-in area of the construction zone. He observed the four people walking within the construction zone on a newer sidewalk near the river.

The subjects were walking westbound, and once they spotted the squad car and the officer, they started running.

The officer entered the construction area and walked toward where he had last seen the subjects. He then shined his flashlight into the area where Putnam Parking Lot used to be and observed one of the males, who was wearing a white shirt, running into the bushes to the north of Garfield Avenue.

The officer yelled at the male to stop, but then only heard crashing noises through the bushes.

According to the report, the officer called in for back up and had another officer walk up the Garfield Avenue hill in an attempt to intercept the subjects if they were to exit the construction zone.

The second officer on the hill found the four subjects coming out of the bushes where he stopped them and was later joined by the first officer.

After being asked what they were doing in the construction zone, the subjects said they wanted to take a shortcut to get back to upper campus.

The officers could detect an odor of intoxicating beverages coming from their persons where they found three of the four subjects to be of legal drinking age.

According to the report, the three subjects who were of legal drinking age received citations for Tampering with Security Devices/Physical Security Compliance. The one subject who was underage received an Underage Drinking-First Offence citation and was only warned for the ordinance violation.

Two sides to a story

At approximately 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 16, a campus officer was dispatched to Putnam Hall for a check person.

According to the report, a male subject was trying to get a female into Putnam Hall but the female was resisting him.

The officer spoke with the complainant who was working as a security worker in the front lobby of Putnam Hall, where she said she the male subject used his Blugold Card to enter the building. He had his arm around the female, which she seemed upset about.

The complainant said the male tried to get the female to enter the building but she said she did not want to and kept telling the male “no.” The complainant stepped in and the male said he was just trying to help the female.

The male and the female both had left the building approximately 30 minutes prior.

As the officer was talking to the complainant, the male re-entered the lobby from the outside, where he then explained to the officer he was trying to help a friend get home from a house party.

The male subject said the female had too much to drink and he helped walk her back to campus from the downtown area. According to the report, the female had been drinking since 10 p.m., and he wanted to make sure she was OK.

He told the officer he was worried about her making it up the campus hill so he first tried to bring her to Putnam Hall where he lived. After the female refused to enter his dorm, the male subject decided to help walk her up the hill to her room in Horan Hall.

Once at Horan Hall, the male contacted another friend in the hall who came outside and helped the female subject into her room. After making sure the female was safe in her room, the male subject walked back down the hill to Putnam Hall.

The male subject admitted to consuming alcohol that evening and said he had two unopened beer cans in his backpack, which he agreed to dump out. The officer told him to return to his room and informed him he was going to go to Horan Hall to speak with the female and make sure her story matched his.

The officer knocked on the door of the female’s room. Her roommate answered and testified to the story. She said the male subject had helped the female into her room and she was safe and asleep in bed.

After asking the roommate to wake up the female subject to make sure she wasn’t too intoxicated, the officer asked her some questions, which she was able to answer without difficulty.

The female said she had been drinking alcohol and the male subject helped her. According to the report, the female’s story seemed to match the male’s and she seemed to be fine.

The officer told her about the consequences she could have faced this night but said he would not be taking any enforcement actions.