More Partying, More Arrests at Rose Bowl

Prolonged tailgate partying at the Rose Bowl game led to a higher number of arrests and medical calls than in past years, Pasadena authorities said Thursday.

More than 200 paramedic requests were logged before or during Wednesday’s game. Police made 36 arrests, primarily for public drunkenness.

“Typically we have a parade and then the game,” said Lisa Derderian, spokeswoman for the Pasadena Fire Department, referring to the traditional New Year’s Day pairing of the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl. This time, because the parade had been held two days before the game, “people were out there having the tailgate parties for hours,” she said.

The busy scene was further enlivened by a postgame emergency helicopter landing near the 50-yard line while thousands of fans were still in the parking lot after the Texas Longhorns’ 41-38 victory over the USC Trojans. The KTTV-TV Channel 11 helicopter touched down safely after a cockpit warning light came on.

Derderian did not have figures from previous years but said the number of emergency medical calls was “much higher than if we were to have the parade and the game on the same day.”

The Police Department reported that 32 men and four women were taken into custody on suspicion of misdemeanor offenses. Seventeen of the arrests involved public intoxication and nine concerned ticket scalping.

Only 10 arrests were made at last year’s game, department spokeswoman Ronnie Nanning said. For about the last 15 years there has been a downward trend in game-related arrests, she added, but “this year’s game was different.” About 94,000 people attended.

“Considering the number of people in attendance, the number of arrests was very manageable,” Cmdr. Chris Vicino said in a statement released by the Police Department.

The Rose Parade, normally held New Year’s Day, took place Monday because of a never-on-Sunday rule from the horse-and-buggy days, when officials feared that the event would disrupt church services. Because the Rose Bowl was this season’s national championship game, it was the final bowl contest on the schedule and was played two days after most of the traditional New Year’s Day games.

Paradegoers who stream into the Rose Bowl for the football game are usually preoccupied with getting to their seats and have little time to party in the parking lot, Derderian said.

“These people had a full day to party and celebrate,” Nanning added.

Thirty-eight people were taken to local hospitals. Several had injuries from assaults stemming from alcohol consumption, while others suffered dehydration, chest pains or other maladies requiring a trip to the emergency room.

Many of the 200-plus calls to paramedics were from people needing blood-pressure checks, Band-Aids or minor medication, Derderian said.

With the volume of calls higher than expected, the Fire Department had to summon four extra ambulances to buttress the six initially stationed at the Rose Bowl.

At 10:30 p.m., about an hour after the game ended, the Channel 11 helicopter radioed that a warning light had come on and that the pilot needed to make an emergency landing.

“There was a report of smoke in the cockpit,” Derderian said.

The helicopter landed without incident in the middle of the field with about 30 firefighters standing by. The smoke report turned out to be a false alarm, but officials said many people could have been endangered if the problem had been real and had caused the pilot to lose control.

“There were literally thousands of people still leaving the parking lot after the game,” Derderian said. A preliminary report indicated that a failed sensor caused the emergency, she said. The Federal Aviation Administration was investigating.

After the game, authorities spent hours checking popular hangouts in nearby Old Pasadena to make sure they did not exceed the legal number of patrons set by fire codes.

“We had many calls of overcrowding at nightspots,” Derderian said. “In some locations we had to return several times to count heads, and people had to be told to line up in the street.”