Belleville Oktoberfest is latest metro-east festival ended early by ‘unruly’ juveniles
Police ended Belleville Oktoberfest earlier than its official closing time on Saturday due to a disturbance involving juveniles.
Officers asked the band to stop playing and began clearing out the crowd about 8:30 p.m., according to Assistant Police Chief Mark Heffernan. The festival was supposed to run until 9 p.m.
“We had a large number of juveniles — unsupervised juveniles — at the event,” Heffernan said. “They were becoming unruly and disorderly, and the decision was made to end the event early.”
It was the latest in a string of disturbances involving juveniles at outdoor festivals in metro-east cities.
Heffernan estimated that more than 100 juveniles were involved in the disturbance at Oktoberfest. No one had been charged as of Monday, he said, but police still were investigating alleged crimes, including one case of aggravated battery.
Mayor Patty Gregory couldn’t be reached for comment. She addressed the disturbance on the 7th Ward of Belleville Facebook page by responding to a series of posts that started with the question, “Anyone know why the police kicked everyone out of the Oktoberfest?“
“Belleville was fortunate that we had 25 police officers on duty,” Gregory wrote. “One third of our police were there on Saturday. They were able to move the (juvenile) groups away from the venue to another area.
“A juvenile pushed an elderly man to the ground, as other juveniles videotaped the incident. The gentleman was taken to a St. Louis hospital.”
The disturbance occurred two years after Belleville police dealt with a “stampede” of about 300 teens who falsely screamed that someone had been shot at Oktoberfest in 2022.
Oktoberfest and Chili Cook-off organizers later agreed to begin ending their festivals earlier, a change that Police Chief Matt Eiskant had requested to improve safety. Closing times for Oktoberfest went from 11 p.m. both days to 10 p.m. on Friday and 9 p.m. on Saturday.
“We’re satisfied with the agreement we have,” Eiskant said in February 2023, when Belleville City Council approved the new times. “We’ll just take it one step at a time and, if problems continue, we’ll continue with restrictions.”
Saturdays tend to be the problem nights at festivals.
Police ended O’Fallon City Fest an hour earlier than its official 10 p.m. closing time on Saturday, Aug. 24, due to a disturbance involving juveniles, according to Lt. Patrick Feldhake.
The disturbance involved fighting and a stampede of people “running in all different directions,” he said. Police were unable to definitively determine what started it all.
“There was no gunfire,” Feldhake said. “Social media got all spun up over it, and people were saying, ‘There was an active shooter. There were shots fired,’ and all these other things, and that absolutely wasn’t the case.”
On Saturday, Aug. 31, officials ended Midwest WingFest at St. Clair Square hours earlier than its official 11 p.m closing time due to a disturbance involving “juveniles without families,” stated a news release from Fairview Heights Police Department.
Officers reported that some juveniles were fighting in the parking lot outside the festival grounds, while others attempted to climb barriers to gain entry after being turned away by organizers.
“Two people were arrested for fighting,” the release stated. “Several non-compliant fighting juveniles were pepper sprayed by officers. Assistance from other police agencies was requested.”
Fights by juveniles broke out on Saturday at last year’s Shiloh Homecoming Picnic, but it was late enough in the evening that the festival didn’t have to be ended early, according to Police Chief Rich Wittenauer.
This year, some juveniles were turned away from the picnic on Saturday, Sept. 7, because they didn’t want security to search their bags, he said, and police later found bags outside the grounds with guns in them.
The case remains under investigation.
“It’s (affecting) the entire area,” Wittenauer said. “At the bigger events, you have large gatherings of juveniles who are trying to mess things up for everybody.”
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