Hobo Weekend Police Report

Saturday, November 5th marked South Dakota State University’s 99th annual largest one-day celebration in the Dakotas.

While SDSU students were preparing for homecoming week with activities such as Miss Homelycoming, Cavorts, the Hobo Day Parade, and a Zombie VS Hobos game of capture the flag, culminating with a win over the Southern Illinois Salukis Saturday afternoon.

Hobo Day Weekend generally brings in troves and troves of people to Brookings.

This year was no different. What was different was the fact that not very many arrests were made, compared to previous years. Assistant Sheriff Scott Sebring said the past two years haven’t been as bad as what they have expected.

ARRESTS MADE
The Brookings Police Department, the University Police Department, the Brookings County Sheriff’s Office and the Highway Patrol all worked together this weekend.

Brookings Police Chief Jeff Miller said, “It was an average year. We gave out lots of warnings, lots of warnings. More than the actual number of arrests. We did this to try to concentrate on more critical offenses.”

The Brookings Police Department only had five DUI arrests for the weekend, while the Sheriff’s Office had 22 DUI arrests.

“STUDYING HARD”
Chief Miller joked, “I’ve never seen students study so hard than on Hobo Weekend. They’re all walking around with their backpacks.” He said with a laugh, he bets the average GPA increases by at least four points that weekend.

STOLEN CARS
One oddity of Hobo Weekend was five cars being stolen. As of 2:30 p.m. Monday, four of the five cars had been returned. The police even found one of the vehicles flipped onto it’s top at 20th Street South and Medary Avenue. The police hadn’t found the driver as of then, but were still looking for them, assuming they had some injuries from accident.

Chief Miller said, “We think the cars were probably unlocked and were taken in order for someone to get somewhere from the downtown area.”

ALL HANDS ON DECK
Chief Miller said all police officers were working Hobo Weekend, including himself. He said there were even two officers who were on light duty were scheduled over the weekend. They stayed at the office, dealing with walk-in traffic, allowing the other officers on patrol to more directly take care of issues downtown. The police department even called upon their reserve department to help patrol the town.
The Highway Patrol had eight troopers out, compared to the average two per night in Brookings County.

VANDALS
As of Monday afternoon, the Brookings Police Department was still receiving calls about intentional damage done to property. The Police Department gave out 15 tickets for intentional damage over Hobo Weekend while the Sheriff’s Office had only given out one such citation.

Overall, both Chief Miller and Assistant Sheriff Sebring said it was a pretty busy weekend, but nothing too major happened.