Although University Police Officer Lee North said there was less Homecoming crime this year than in past years, alcohol-related crimes were still prevalent in University Police reports.
“This is the most well-behaved Homecoming I’ve ever heard,” North said. “(Students) were just having fun. Maybe the students are learning moderation with alcohol consumption.”
However, University Police reports over Homecoming weekend noted six incidents of driving while intoxicated, six cases of minors consuming alcoholic beverages, one instance of alcohol consumed in public and one charge of possession of a small amount of marijuana.
Other incidents from Homecoming weekend are as follows:
ù A man was arrested for pulling a knife on three University students outside of Fowl Play, 1301 Fourth St. S.E., Saturday night during the Homecoming block party.
One victim, a University junior, said the man and his friends were apparently trying to pick a fight.
The man approached the victim and his friends and pulled a knife out of his pocket. The victim punched the knife-wielding man, and then one of the victim’s friends found a police officer and told him about the incident.
Police caught one of the men and arrested him after finding a buck knife in his pocket.
The other two suspects fled the area.
ù A woman sitting in her car near Dinkytown Friday night reported to University Police that another vehicle ran into her parked car several times.
When University police officers arrived to take the report, they found two men attempting to change the car’s damaged tire. According to the University Police report, the underage men had been drinking and beer cans were in their pockets. Police found a plastic bag containing marijuana on one of the men.

In other police news occurring between Oct. 15 and Oct. 21:
ù A University student chased a man, who was apparently wearing boxer shorts, away from the rear end of a cow Saturday in the St. Paul campus dairy barns.
Shannon Leary, a junior in the College of Agriculture, works in the dairy barns. She said when she arrived at work, a co-worker told her there was a man standing behind one of the cows in the barn. Leary went to investigate, but when she approached the man, he ran.
Leary said she and police officers discovered what they believe to be the man’s jeans and coat, along with several buckets of cow manure in the lab area of the barns.
“It’s the weirdest thing I’ve had happen in the year and a half I’ve been working here,” she said.
The dairy barns are open to the public and Leary said people often visit. She also said researchers usually take fecal samples from cows for various reasons, but usually not in their boxer shorts.
“We just kept thinking it over and thinking it over, and nothing adds up,” Leary said.
ù A University employee said on Friday he caught a man who was running from the woman whose briefcase he had stolen several minutes earlier.
David Zerwas, a senior psychology major, said he was taking a break outside the Variety Club Research Center, 401 East River Road, when he heard a woman screaming. Through reflections in the windows he said he saw a man running. Zerwas said he caught the man as he attempted to run past him.
“I put a choke hold on him,” Zerwas said. He held the man for about five minutes until Hospital Protection Services and University Police arrived.
The University Police report stated that the woman unsuccessfully tried to stop the man as he left her office.
The man was placed under citizen’s arrest and transported to Hennepin County Jail.