Patrols credited with taming frat parties

Raucous parties are on the wane in the University of Washington's northern neighborhood, where dozens of fraternities and sororities are concentrated, thanks to special police patrols, officials said yesterday.

The success at keeping the peace has helped persuade the university to extend the program through the end of the school year.

UW police were in the neighborhood again last night, cruising streets and alleys in "incident-prevention teams" that enforce drinking and noise laws, break up parties and check student IDs.

Ray Wittmier, an assistant UW Police Department chief, said the teams will continue the beefed-up Thursday-through-Saturday patrols until summer. They originally were to end in November.

The university launched the patrols after a Sept. 28 melee in the neighborhood. Hundreds of young men and women, many of them students, filled the streets. Some threw bottles at police, turned over a car and set fire to debris.

Wittmier said statistics show that the team has put a damper on frat-area partying, which neighbors said has been out of control in recent years. In the second weekend of enforcement, police reported 110 alcohol-related contacts with students. By the last weekend of November, just before the fall quarter ended, only 11 students were suspected of violations.

The patrols and Seattle's new noise ordinance have helped clean up the neighborhood, said Douglas Wills, vice president of the University Park Community Club.

"It's almost so quiet we don't know what to do," he said. "I think the word, at least for noise, has gotten out."

The organization that watches over UW frats reported that the number of social events at those houses has also dropped off.

"Some of the fraternities felt that due to the incident-prevention teams, they had to cut back on the number of events," said Jason Bartusch, director of the Interfraternity Council. "Having a social event and knowing the teams are out there is like wanting to get into trouble."

The melee erupted on the heels of two lawsuits filed against the UW over alleged sexual abuse of two women. The former students, teens at the time, said they had been drinking at separate parties in fraternities and were raped afterward by student athletes.

The brawl and suits led to calls for the UW to apply its code of conduct to students off campus and wield its ability to expel students as a deterrent. Mayor Greg Nickels and community leaders still want the university to take that step, even though the incident-prevention teams are having a strong impact.

"We're still pushing for the extension of the code," Wills said. "It could make an additional improvement."

Student leaders, however, oppose such a move. "Any blanket extension of the student conduct code wouldn't be acceptable," said senior Alfredo Padilla, a member of the Student Senate. He called for a wider exploration of how to address neighborhood concerns, including student input. "Any extension that would put undue scrutiny into student lives wouldn't be acceptable."

UW officials say they are exploring extending the code but don't have a deadline for a decision.

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