By Kara DeChalk
Contributing Writer
At Monday’s City council meeting, Albion Department of Public Safety Chief Aaron Phipps gave an overview of the weekend’s events. Amid two days of seemingly non-stop mobile nuisance parties, commonly referred to as X-Train parties, ADPS also dealt with a structure fire and a shooting. In all, ADPS received more than 50 calls for service throughout Saturday and Sunday alone.
Phipps’ report came in a timely manner as the summer brings many applications for park reservations, block parties and sound amplification permits before council. In light of the weekend’s events, he expressed concern that council might add to the block party ordinances in regards to requirements and penalties and have those ordinances carry over to the parks.
Phipps explained that earlier in the month ADPS learned about a block party being planned on S. Dalrymple Street. The property owner, after learning of the ordinance and that there was specific criteria that had to be met in order to have a block party application approved, decided not to have the party there. Instead, another person submitted a park registration application for the use of Holland Park on Saturday, June 14.
“On Saturday, around 6-6:30 p.m., we (ADPS) got word that Holland Park was going to be pretty full and that they were going to have the party there, this block party that was originally going to be on South Dalrymple,” said Phipps. It appears that the person believed that by submitting the application meant they had permission to hold the party at the park.
Shortly before 7 p.m. on Saturday, ADPS received the first loud music complaint and according to Phipps there were around 200 people at the park.
At 8:13 p.m., ADPS was dispatched to the 800 block of N. Superior Street for a reported structure fire. The fire was quickly extinguished and the occupants evacuated safely. By 9:17 p.m. officers had returned to the park and started to clear out the party.
As the party goers left the park ADPS received numerous reckless driving complaints. “We had 200 people just spread out in the community flooding gas stations and there was another party that was taking place at the Leisure Hour that ended up filling up East alley over there completely.” Between the two parties, Phipps estimated that there were 300-400 people in town Saturday night. One Facebook post simply stated “Albion has been invaded.”
Outnumbered, the Calhoun County Sheriff’s department and the Michigan State Police came over to assist. Some arrests were made and some vehicles were impounded. Phipps said the partiers stayed into the early hours of Sunday morning, even as early as 5 a.m.
Then at 6:21 a.m. ADPS was dispatched to the 500 Block of West Broadwell Street on reports of a shooting victim. The shooting was a domestic incident that did not stem from the parties.
“On Sunday they tried to do it again”, Phipps continued, “however, we got ahead of it and did some really proactive police work, we made a lot of arrests, we wrote a lot of tickets very early and everybody was pretty much out of the city by 10 p.m. I think.”
By that time the party had moved to University Lanes in Jackson County, just outside of Albion city limits. Shortly after midnight a fight broke out and ADPS was called to assist Jackson County Sheriff’s department. “Our officers and other departments from our county all went out there. From there they flooded into the city and stopped at about 8 locations and tried to do the same thing in town.“ Michigan State Police and Calhoun County Sheriff’s Department along with Emmett Township and the Tribal Police of Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi also came to assist.
“Everybody pretty much got out of town by 1:19 a.m. So with all that, it is a very helpless feeling, there’s nothing good about this,” said Phipps. “It seems that what they’re going to try to do is to utilize the parks as a point where everybody can come and meet up and then they’ll just move around town and it’s literally a game of cat and mouse that really puts everybody at risk in our community.”
Phipps said that these mobile parties have also taken place in Battle Creek, Jackson and Kalamazoo. As he recounted the events before council, he went on to explain, “What we had Saturday night and then again Sunday is commonly referred to as an X-train, basically a mobile nuisance party. It’s very common in Kalamazoo. Kalamazoo DPS and the city are having to do some very specific ordinances in order to impound vehicles because that seems to be the best way to get people to stop doing it.”
