As police forces worked together this weekend to keep the peace, 74 MIPs were issued from Thursday night to Sunday morning – the most of any Welcome Weekend in at least the last four out of five years.

The Mount Pleasant Police Department majority patrolled the “downtown” area of Main, Washington and University streets, issuing more than 80 liquor violations, including 43 MIPs.

Past years’ data came from the Central Michigan Life archives, though information was unavailable for Welcome Weekend 2005 and before 2003.

Liquor violations include drinking and driving, MIPs, illegal possession of alcohol and open intoxication.

Isabella County Sheriff Leo Mioduszewski said his department primarily handled issues outside of the city in apartment complexes and dealt with a variety of different illegal activities.

“There were two drunk driving arrests, one driving while license suspended arrest, 19 MIPs. (Officers) broke up 16 nuisance parties,” he said.

Mioduszewski said the Isabella County Sheriff’s Department had two disorderly person arrests and an MIP that turned into a felony because of the person trying to run away.

“We had one resisting and obstructing. They were actually going to be cited for an MIP, and she tried to pull away and run from the deputies, so that’s actually a felony,” Mioduszewski said.

Overall, Mioduszewski and Central Michigan University Police Sgt. Christopher A. Pryor said for the amount of activity from the weekend, all-and-all, things went well.

“From what I’ve seen in the past I think it went pretty decently. I’m speaking generally on-campus here, but I think it was actually fairly peaceful, a fairly peaceful weekend,” Pryor said.

CMU police gave out 12 MIPs, a possession of marijuana ticket, three disorderly conduct citations and two arrests for resisting and obstructing, but Pryor said in general students were partying smart.

“It’s kind of a common theme that people if they did their partying, had fun, that they were responsible for their actions. That’s what I would have to say from our end,” he said.

Dewitt junior Chadd Fletcher lives in a house on the first block of Main Street and said it was a fun weekend and had no problem with police officers patrolling Main Street.

“(The police) were very understanding. We had people here that stayed sober and made sure it didn’t get out of control,” he said. “Every time they walked by, we made sure about if they needed us to do anything for everyone’s safety.”

Bridgeport sophomore Benjamin Leal also lives on Main Street and said police each night talked with each residence on Main Street, discussing the night’s events. Police proved helpful one night, he said.

“We actually used their help to clear out one of our parties at the end of the night. We asked them to just come, and they just walked through and got everyone out,” Leal said.

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