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Erin Tapper left a downtown bar early Oct. 15 after six hours, six mixed drinks and four beers. She headed west down Pearl Street.
It was natural to walk downhill to the Riverside Park levee, even at 2:30 a.m., the 25-year-old said.
“I wouldn’t walk into the river,” she said. “I’ve never had any fears of walking around in La Crosse at night — ever.”
It was the same deadly path at least two University of Wisconsin-La Crosse students have taken.
A month ago, 21-year-old Lucas Homan was downtown with friends. His body was pulled from the Mississippi River near the Riverside Park levee at the foot of Pearl Street two days later.
Homan was the eighth college-age man to drown in an area river since 1997 and the sixth whose drowning involved an accidental fall into the water. All had blood-alcohol concentrations of 0.2 percent or higher. Homan’s preliminary reading was 0.32 percent. His death sparked renewed discussion in City Hall, in bars around town and even in the backseats of taxis about drinking and the park.
But people downtown on the weekends have seen little
change. Students and twentysomethings still flock downtown to swill cheap bar specials, dance on liquor-soaked floors and capture the night on digital cameras.
Female patrons in tank tops mingle and sway with acquaintances and strangers to blaring hip-hop music. A fight between two women starts, and one is asked to leave by the bouncer. Bartenders announce drink specials as bar time approaches.
When bar time arrives, the downtown sidewalks fill with patrons filtering out. They loiter in front of bars, yell across the street, flood restaurants or head to their next destinations.
Some jump into oncoming traffic on Third Street, relieve themselves in nearby parking ramps or search for friends gone astray. But within 15 minutes, the intersection of Third and Pearl streets is still.
“The big thing the community doesn’t understand is there was an alcohol problem before the drownings,” said La Crosse police officer Alan Iverson, who patrols the downtown area late at night. “And until people change the way they think, we’ll continue to have that problem.”
Prevention efforts
The most noticeable change is the student-driven Operation River Watch.
Students from UW-L, Viterbo University and Western Technical College patrol Riverside Park in two-hour shifts from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, hoping to prevent another drowning. The patrols began just three days after Homan’s body was found.
UW-L student and River Watch volunteer Aron McManus said he didn’t sleep the night Homan’s body was found because had the program been started earlier, it could have saved a life.
McManus, director of city affairs for the university student association, said he spoke with police about starting the program in early summer. But it was put on the back burner.
“I didn’t want it to start this way,” he said during patrols late Oct. 12. “When things like this come up, you think you have all the time in the world.”
Had Tapper continued walking on the levee, the two River Watch students would have handed her a flier advising her the park closes from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. She could have been ticketed for $70.80 had she stayed. Had she left the park, reserve officers driving along the perimeter of the park and the levee in a Jeep might have stopped her.
Iverson visits the student patrols at shift change. “Don’t go on the rocks. Don’t go on the levee,” he tells them. “That’s for your own safety. If you run into anyone uncooperative, don’t do anything heroic.”
It’s not just a student problem, but they’re the ones trying to make a difference, McManus said. He thinks it’s better than cameras or lights. Sixty-eight lights illuminate the park; six shine on the levee.
Shortly after midnight
Oct. 13, Western student Ross LaRocco is on patrol. Like many others, he has no idea why some wander down to the river’s edge. “You can’t understand what’s running through the mind of a drunk,” he said.
LaRocco added that patrols aren’t a “100 percent solution.”
“Something more has to be done,” he said.
UW-L freshman Eddie Guzman, 18, of Racine, Wis., said he’ll volunteer “however long it takes to prevent another drowning.” He’s confident a fence around the park, or at least gates at its entrances, is the solution.
“It’s another way to slow somebody down and prevent them from getting to the water,” he said.
Same downtown scene
The downtown scene hasn’t changed since Homan’s drowning, Iverson said from the front of his patrol car early Oct. 13.
He encounters few intoxicated people in Riverside Park, but those few often have blood-alcohol concentrations far greater than the legal limit for driving.
Early Oct. 15, a 22-year-old UW-L student was taken to Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center for detoxification after police found him lying in the grass talking on his cell phone outside Logistics Health.
The male student was stumbling, slurring his speech and had no warm clothes on, according to reports. He had a 0.19 percent blood-alcohol concentration at 1:16 a.m. He told police he was on his way home. Although he lives east of the park, he pointed north.
At 1:09 a.m. Oct. 1,
La Crescent, Minn., police found a 25-year-old Chetek, Wis., man walking north in the median of Hwy. 16. He told police he was in downtown La Crosse and didn’t know how he ended up in La Crescent. The man had a 0.29 percent blood-alcohol concentration.
A-1 Taxi driver Michael Hager said in the past two years he has had at least three customers in their early 20s who insisted the way home was through the river. Even his GPS unit didn’t convince them.
“I point at the screen, show them and tell them that all there is to the west is water, and they don’t believe me,” he said.
Police have made repeated prevention efforts, Iverson said, but law enforcement can’t do everything. “It takes education, enforcement, students and bar servers to do everything they can and more to prevent further tragedies,” he said.
‘I don’t feel there’s going to be a change’
Bar owners said drinking habits haven’t changed in the wake of Homan’s death.
“I don’t feel there’s going to be a change,” said Kyle Prentice, owner of The Helm. “But I do hope they are more aware and take more precautions.”
Unlike other bars, The Joint has seen a decline in patrons since Homan’s death, said owner Jeff Richert. He isn’t sure whether it’s because of the drowning or simply a seasonal shift.
While some criticism has been leveled at those behind the bar, bar owners said their bartenders are required to attend responsible serving sessions.
“My bartenders are trained not to serve people who are drunk,” said Longhorn Saloon owner Todd Young.
“We refuse to serve patrons all the time because they are too drunk,” Richert said. “That’s the law. Usually what we end up doing is calling a cab. Sometimes they get upset and walk out, and it’s the last time we see them.”
Chapter II co-owner John Gamoke, whose bar caters to an older crowd, said he has seen customers look out more for members of their group after the most recent drowning. He also has seen an increase in taxi usage.
“After a few months or a year, it could change, though,” he said.
Hager, who works 4:30 p.m. to 6 a.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, said A-1 Taxi saw a drastic decline in calls on the first and second weekends of October, just after Homan’s death. CTS Taxi reported a slight rider decrease in the same period.
“It seems people aren’t going to the bars as much,” Hager said. “But I’m not saying (Homan’s death) had a direct bearing on that.”
Dennis Duncanson, a driver for the Municipal Transit Utility’s Safe Ride bus that shuttles students from campuses to the downtown, said rider patterns have not changed.
‘Everybody is still talking about it’
Students described the campus atmosphere as a mix: Some people are mourning, others are blaming and others are talking about the stories surrounding Homan’s drowning.
“This time it wasn’t shocking to freshmen that someone drowned in the river while drinking,” said Travis Bassett, president of the Student Government Association at Viterbo. “Upperclassmen were outraged it happened and nothing effective has been done after the last one. They are angry. They can’t believe it happened again.”
The drownings — and what some maintain is a suspicious pattern of circumstances — are a popular subject among fares, said CTS taxi driver Heather Cline, who works 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. Friday and Saturdays.
“Everyone thinks someone’s doing it, rather than a product of the alcohol culture,” she said.
Richert said “everyone is still talking about it” at the bars.
“Half the people think it’s just drunk kids accidentally falling into the river,” he said. “The other half thinks it’s a serial killer or something like that.”
Chaun Hoff, who owns the North Side bars Skippers Tavern, George Street Pub and Pastimes Tavern, said his patrons still were talking about the drowning two weeks after Homan’s body was found.
Authorities blame binge drinking, but Hoff and many of his customers wonder whether there’s something else.
“I honestly haven’t run into one person that agrees it’s binge drinking,” Hoff said. “As many times as I have been downtown, legally intoxicated, I have never in the 33 years I’ve lived in La Crosse, walked down by the river. Maybe things were different when I was 21. There’s nothing down by the river.”
Several bar owners echoed Hoff and voiced frustration about what they perceive as being blamed for supplying excessive amounts of alcohol.
“This is a touchy subject with me because I feel like (the police chief) is trying to put the blame on the bar scene,” Young said. “I hope the city doesn’t make us the scapegoat.”
Police chief Ed Kondracki has maintained that investigations in the deaths have been thorough and the real killer in La Crosse is alcohol.
‘Not that I could see’
Viterbo University senior Katy Shoup heads downtown a few weekends a month with friends. On Oct. 13, she and her friends started at the Alpine Inn before heading to Brothers, The Library and Who’s on Third. She estimated she had six to eight drinks, a combination of mixed drinks and beer.
When asked a few days later if anything has changed downtown, she said, “Not that I could see. It’s sad to say. I wish something had.”
Shoup, 22, hears talk of the drowning on campus but not when downtown. She has heard about the river patrol and knows some Viterbo students are involved.
“It’s a good idea, as long as they are sober,” she said. “It would be extra sets of eyes down there.”
But Shoup thinks police should increase patrols around the river and the city should install a fence near the water.
“It’s just too easy to walk down there and fall in the river,” she said. “I can imagine it happening. One of my friends was very, very confused at the end of the night. If we wouldn’t have paid attention to where he was going, who knows where he would have ended up.”
Anne Jungen can be reached at (608) 791-8224 or ajungen@lacrossetribune.com. Kate Schott can be reached at (608) 791-8226 or kate.schott@lacrossetribune.com.
Waste of Space wrote on Oct 30, 2006 11:05 AM: