It's 10:30 on a Thursday night in College Park. The weather is warm, homework has yet to pile up and thousands of students are getting ready to drink.
Also out are 34 officers from the University of Maryland Department of Public Safety, caffeinated and ready for a long evening.
In the next four hours they will bust more than a dozen parties of varying sizes, confiscating kegs and pouring out bottles of liquor. They will check parking garages for rocking cars, tell students not to stand in the street and call ambulances for the intoxicated students they find passed out.
They will make only seven arrests.
"We all know what happens in P.G. County - there are so many serious charges that most students get off easy" for disorderly conduct or underage drinking, said Lt. Ken Ecker, the midnight supervisor, who has worked at the university for nearly 15 years. "Where we can really hit them hard is administrative charges" at the university, which can lead to mandatory alcohol awareness classes or even eviction from the dorms.
The University of Maryland has had a party school reputation for decades, despite measurable improvements in its academics and research. Playboy recently ranked the campus No. 11 on its list of the top 25 party schools
This fall, the campus police more than doubled the number of officers on patrol each night as part of a back-to-school initiative that will wrap up Sept. 25. About a dozen officers patrol on most school nights, up from just a handful. On Thursday and Friday nights, more than 30 officers fan out instead of the usual dozen.
On this Thursday night, Ecker drives through campus and the surrounding neighborhoods, easily picking out the freshmen, who travel in packs composed of nearly every person from their dorm floor.
In one such clump, everyone still has student IDs around their necks and a few students wear high school T-shirts. But the most obvious clue that they are freshmen? No red cups in hand, Ecker said. They still haven't learned to bring their own cup to keggers.
"These are the kids who don't have fake IDs yet," Ecker said. "They go in big circles - street to street - searching for the parties."
Ecker drives over to U.S. 1, parks and wanders toward the Thirsty Turtle, which has $3 SoCo and lime shots and a small line forming at the door. He stops to talk with the bouncers, reminding them to take a good look at IDs before letting students inside.
