Holiday Weekend Relatively Calm

     While Falmouth made news across the country this Fourth of July weekend because of a beating blamed on a baseball rivalry, Falmouth town officials said that image of the town is an unfair one and that the weekend, in which the town hosts, by some estimates, 100,000 guests, went relatively smoothly.
     Falmouth Assistant Town Manager Heather B. Harper, who was in charge this weekend since Town Manager Robert L. Whritenour Jr. was on vacation, said, “My hat is off to those employees and volunteers of the town that had to give up their own holiday time with their families to support the town’s annual Fourth of July celebration.”
     It was Ms. Harper who estimated that from Woods Hole to Menauhant Beach in East Falmouth, the town’s fireworks brings about 100,000 people to the Falmouth shoreline.
     “It’s a massive number of people,” she said. And even with the entire town police force on duty, plus 13 additional deputies from the Barnstable County Sheriff’s Office, Ms. Harper said, the sheer numbers of people mean that the event in some ways “needs to manage itself.”
     “It does rely on the community to be respectful and responsible, and this is clearly a case where that did not happen,” she said of the beating that ended with a New York visitor in the hospital and a Falmouth man under arrest. The New Yorker was treated and released and drove home that night.
     Ms. Harper also mentioned that extra department of public works crews needed to be called to the Falmouth Heights ballfield, which was not cleaned up from the debris left by the fireworks event until about noon on Saturday.
     Falmouth Police Captain William J. McManamin pointed out that when a much more serious incident, a stabbing, occurred a few years ago at the fireworks, the incident did not make the national press. He said it was the press’s version of the motive, a Yankees/Red Sox rivalry, that catapulted the assault and battery story to the news wire services and New York tabloids.
     “It was really an assault and battery, something that occurs all the time,” he said. “It should never have happened, but the amount of attention is way, way beyond proportion for what occurred.”
     Other than the assault, Capt. McManamin said, it was “business as usual.” There were calls about loud parties and illegal fireworks, and a number of reports of underage drinking. There were a number of car accidents, as well.
     Capt. McManamin said the increased bike patrols worked well this year and next year there is talk of having the cycling police follow the crowd out of the Heights, as massive number of walkers travel down Worcester Court, Maravista Avenue, and Grand Avenue in the Heights. It was during that “mass exodus,” as one participant dubbed it, that the assault occurred. A police officer close to the scene arrived within moments, and the arrest was made swiftly, Capt. McManamin said.
     Falmouth Police Chief Anthony J. Riello, who was experiencing his first Falmouth fireworks as chief, said he is used to large crowds from the annual Fourth of July parade in Pittsfield that would also attract 100,000 people on average.
     Joseph (Dutch) Drollette Jr., who is president of the Falmouth Fireworks Committee that organizes the event, said he is still a few thousand dollars short this year on fundraising for the fireworks extravaganza, which is priced at about $50,000.
     Mr. Drollette had to make the decision on Friday under cloudy skies to go ahead with the fireworks, a decision that turned out to be sound, as rain held off until later in the evening. Mr. Drollette said the decision was made at about noon on Friday after researching the forecast for “ceiling heights, clouds, and an hour-by-hour forecast.” The biggest worry, Mr. Drollette said, was fog.
     As to the beating, Mr. Drollette said, “I’m embarrassed that happened in my town.” He said after all the hard work and support by sponsors to hold the event, “to have a couple of people misbehave in our community, that’s not what patriotism is about.”
     There was some rain during the weekend, but for the most part it was beach weather and crowd count along the town’s coastline was about even with last year’s, when looking at sticker sales throughout the weekend, according to Falmouth Beach Superintendent Donald L. Hoffer.
      But day tripper beach pass sales at Old Silver Beach, the town’s busiest public beach, were down from last year, with 354 passes sold this year compared to 790 sold last year.