IU students account for less than half of Little 500 citations

For decades, Little 500 has been called one of the craziest college party weekends in America.

With a notably high number of citations issued every year, and a jump in IU Police Department cases, Associate Dean of Students and director of the Office of Student Ethics Jason Casares looked at these numbers in a new way.

Casares and his staff, for the second year in a row, found that more than half of the police citations issued did not go to IU students.

“My feeling of this place is that it’s just a better community than was advertised,” he said.

The 143 non-student citations were issued to community members, students visiting from other schools and alumni, Casares said.

There were a total of 235 reports, 92 of which were IU students, Casares said.

Casares said he thinks it’s important to debunk what he called the “Little 500 myth” that students go wild during Little 500 weekend.

“Our students are exercising good decisions, making good choices, surrounding themselves with people they can trust,” he said.

The Office of Student Ethics receives information on all Little 500 citations the Monday morning after the race weekend, and digs in right away, Casares said.

First, Casares said, they determine how many are IU students and how many are not.

In cases in which the person cited is an IU student from a different IU campus, such as IU South Bend, their information is forwarded to their campus.

Then, the office begins to work on citations issued to IU students.

If a student is a first time offender, they are sent to a seminar and required to pay a fine.

If a student is in contact with the office for a second time, they are required at minimum to have a hearing.

“Ultimately, we deal with the most egregious cases up front,” Casares said.

These cases, with only one week before finals, will have their hearings first.
The rest will be dealt with during the summer via Skype or phone, depending upon the distance.

According to IUPD’s daily case log, the average number of cases is 25.3 for all weekends on the log apart from Little 500 weekend. There were 99 cases this Little 500 weekend.

Casares said he acknowledged there are always going to be students who drink too much, but said he believed IU’s image in connection to Little 500 is far worse than the reality.

Anna Hyzy