Another Little 5 walk of shame

Every year, MaryEllen Diekhoff looks forward to Little 500 weekend. She loves working Saturday and Sunday. And it gets even better as she gets older.\nOK, enough with the jokes.\nLittle 500 is not a party for the Monroe County Deputy Prosecutor.\nFor Diekhoff, Little 5 is about pretrial diversion. It's about processing hundreds of students for alcohol violations. It's about opening the Monroe County Justice Building on a Sunday -- the only time it's open on Sunday all year.\nIt's been a Little 500 tradition since 1988.\nThat's when riots broke out in Varsity Villas after the race, leading to more than 500 arrests. The system wasn't prepared then to deal with large numbers of arrests and citations during the famous college weekend.\nNow, it is.\nPlanning begins months in advance and involves campus, city and county police, the prosecutor's office, IU dean's office, student groups and the athletic department.\nThey discuss specific plans for traffic control, stepped-up security around dorms and apartment complexes and race-day logistics. And each law enforcement agency gets instructions on pretrial diversion -- an option that allows first-time offenders to have their charges dropped after one year.\nEveryone arrested during Little 500 weekend who qualifies for pretrial diversion has a court date of 8:30 a.m. Sunday. Diekhoff provides paperwork for defendants from Friday evening through Saturday morning and Saturday evening until 4 a.m. Sunday.\nLast year, about 250 took the pretrial diversion option during Little 5 weekend, fewer than in recent years.\nIn part because Bloomington is a college town, Diekhoff said pretrial diversion is an attractive option. \n"You don't really want to have a record when you get out of college, even if it's a misdemeanor," she said.\nBut pretrial diversion isn't a party for students either.\nIt's punishment to the tune of about $400 in fines, alcohol education classes and half a day Sunday cleaning up trash left by Little 500 revelers.\nJon Peter, now a senior, went through it his sophomore year. He and a few friends were breathalyzed and cited by plainclothes officers on Friday of Little 500 weekend.\n"It definitely kept me from drinking the rest of that weekend," he said. "It was kind of a bummer."\nAfter waiting in line for hours Sunday morning, signing up for an alcohol class and paying more than $300 in cash (they don't accept checks), Peter spent four hours cleaning up trash around Bill Armstrong Stadium.\nFor some students, being hungover doesn't make picking up trash any easier, Diekhoff said.\n"If the weather is warm and the sun is beating," she said, "I think you forget that party you were at the night before real rapidly."\nFortunately, after a year, the courts also forget.