Fairground cleanup
Carnival worker David Beasley of Lake City, Fla., tosses an extension cord to a co-worker while he takes down a game booth along the midway as cleanup from the Arkansas State Fair continued Monday in Little Rock.
It was a quiet year for criminal activity at the Arkansas State Fair, with Little Rock police only arresting one person at the 10-day event, a Police Department spokesman said.
Lt. Steve McClanahan said the lone arrest was a man who tried to use a counterfeit $100 bill at a funnel cake stand. According to a police report, officers located the man and found him in possession of a second counterfeit bill.
“We would take that every year, especially for a nonviolent crime, since it’s a forgery,” McClanahan said.
The fair this year drew 450,702 people over the 10-day event, said Ralph Shoptaw, general manager of the Arkansas State Fair. The 2016 attendance figure is below last year’s record attendance of 473,106, but above the fair’s average attendance figures from 2013 to 2015, he said.
“There’s a strong presence of police security here,” Shoptaw said.
Little Rock police had between 40 and 90 uniformed officers at the fair on any given night, not including undercover police who also attended, Shoptaw said.
“We’re just thankful that nobody was injured, shot or anything like that,” McClanahan said.
A Little Rock police helicopter and an Arkansas State Police helicopter monitored the fair from above, while officers were also able to watch crowds from two SkyWatch towers at the fairgrounds, McClanahan said.
The event attracts people from all over the state, he said, and crowds can cause disturbances.
“Sometimes people get mouthy,” he said. “Because they do serve alcohol at the fair.”
McClanahan did not have an explanation for why there was little criminal activity at the fair, but he said the department tries its best to make its presence known.
Besides Little Rock police, the fair had about 30 armed security guards monitoring the event, Shoptaw said.
The Pulaski County sheriff’s office also had 12 to 20 reserve deputies working the fair on any given night, along with one to two fulltime deputies, said Capt. Carl Minden, a spokesman for the office.
Police filed 20 reports at the fairgrounds over the 10day event this year, including two false or unfounded calls and three forgery reports, according to department data.
One of those reports came on the first Saturday of the fair, when officers saw a crowd gathering and two women holding onto each other in a fight, police said.
When police arrived, one suspect ran away while the other, a 14-year-old girl, tried to run after her, according to the report.
The teenager had a minor injury to her lip and nose and told police the other woman started the fight “because she was jealous of the boy she was walking with,” police said.
In 2014, a shooting near the fairgrounds made headlines after 16-year-old Braylon Moore died from his injuries. Police had responded to a shooting at 2100 W. 24th St., about a block away from the fairgrounds, during the last Saturday of the fair that year and found a teenager who appeared to be shot, according to a newspaper article.
Moore was taken to an area hospital where he died the next day, according to the article. Police documents said the shooting was gang-related.McClanahan said police have been monitoring the immediate areas outside of the fair to address any problems that come up.
For people who park in the neighborhood near the fair, Shoptaw said the police presence outside the fairgrounds deters muggings and fights when people leave the event.
“That’s made a world of difference,” he said.
Shoptaw said fair officials meet every year with representatives from the state police, the Pulaski County sheriff’s office and Little Rock police to go over security plans.
“Security is always something that we have on our mind,” Shoptaw said. “And we want people to feel safe.”