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Wisconsin softball team notches team-record 40th loss of season over the weekend
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Monday, May 5, 2008
MPD: Tracing 911 cell phone calls feasible By Abby Sears THE DAILY CARDINAL
KYLE BURSAW/THE DAILY CARDINAL
CHRISTOPHER GUESS/THE DAILY CARDINAL
The 40th anniversary of the Mifflin Street Block Party on May 3 drew around 10,000 attendees. MPD reports arrest totals higher than those of Freakfest 2007.
Mifflin arrests hit record high Madison Police Department makes approximately 400 arrests at block party By Abby Sears THE DAILY CARDINAL
STEPHANIE HEMSHROT/THE DAILY CARDINAL
Mifflin arrests 2008 Offense statistics as of 7:15 p.m., May 3 • 157 open container of alcohol • 68 underage drinking • 11 public urination • 11 fake identification • 10 glass-free zone • 4 possessions of THC/marijuana • 2 disorderly conduct Source: Madison Police Department
City officials are pushing to revamp the Mifflin Street Block Party, possibly through sponsorship of the event, after the party hit a record number of arrests at the 40th annual event Saturday. With more than 400 arrests made by the Madison Police Department, the 2008 event’s arrest numbers surpassed previous Mifflin parties, as well as those of Freakfest 2007, according to police reports. MPD public information officer Joel DeSpain said the majority of arrests were alcohol-related offenses such as open container and underage drinking. A police presence of 120 officers supervised an estimated crowd of fewer than 10,000 people throughout the day until the party dwindled down and streets opened up around 8 p.m. Police relocated resources to the State Street area to monitor the shifting partygoers as the night continued. “Overall the crowd has been a somewhat intoxicated many people, but they’ve been for the most part behaved,” DeSpain said. The paradox of a relatively tame crowd and a high number of arrests is a problem that has city officials eager to make changes to the event. Until recently, officials remained opposed to any formal recognition of the
Mifflin Street Block Party and sought to end the event, according to Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4. Officials see potential to revitalize Mifflin through commercial sponsorship given the success of Freakfest, which has been sponsored for the past two years. “I think that there is a renewed, very strong interest by city officials to try and hopefully proactively seek out a sponsor, an organizer for this annual event,” Verveer said. Rather than gating off the street and making partygoers pay an admission fee like at Freakfest, Verveer said the goal of having a sponsor at Mifflin would be to bring more structure to the event. He said obtaining a street permit would allow for main music stages to be set up in the street and shift the focus to music rather than just drinking. “I would prefer it be student based,” Verveer said of the sponsorship, suggesting a student organization take on the role. “This party has always been about students, it should be about students.”
Relive Visit dailycardinal.com8 for a photo slideshow of the 2008 Mifflin Street Block Party.
After the Dane County 911 Center revealed that it mishandled Brittany Zimmermann’s cell phone call the day of her homicide, many UW-Madison students are questioning the center’s ability to provide proper emergency response. “I understand they probably had a bunch of calls that they were dealing with, but it’s kind of a big failure on the part of 911 to do what it’s supposed to do,” UW-Madison senior Gabriel Endres said. At a news conference Thursday, 911 Center Director Joe Norwick said a dispatcher mistakenly thought Zimmermann’s call was an accidental or “hang-up” call. When a hang-up call is made from a cell phone, center policy dictates that the dispatcher call ZIMMERMANN the number back to verify that there is no emergency, but Norwick said police are not dispatched because technology cannot locate an exact address from a cell phone. Madison Police Department policy, however, says that the technology has been available since at least 2006, with upgrades allowing dispatchers to receive the “subscriber name, phone number and location from where the cellular call was made.” LeeAnn Krieg, first vice president of the Wisconsin Emergency Number Association, said 2005 legislation used a monthly surcharge on cell phone bills to develop more precise locating technology. Krieg said the fees are collected then distributed among counties to implement their technological upgrades. Despite the push for improvement, Krieg said current technology is limited in its cell phone locating abilities. “The technology is there, but with the way the technology is right now 911 page 3
Campus research takes center stage UW stem-cell pioneer one of TIME 100
Groundbreaking day for ‘discovery’ By Stephanie Dar THE DAILY CARDINAL
Construction officially began Friday on the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, the public-private partnership that will house much of UW-Madison’s future interdisciplinary research. Gov. Jim Doyle, members of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and UW-Madison Alumni John and Tashia Morgridge welcomed community members during a groundbreaking ceremony
Friday at the building site on the 1300 block of University Avenue. “We are on the verge of the integration of the most unique public [and] private institute anywhere in the world dedicated to the kind of research that will improve people’s lives for generations to come,” Doyle said. The building will host both the private, nonprofit Morgridge Institute for Research and the public Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery.
Carl Gulbrandsen, chair of the MIR board of trustees and managing director of WARF, called the partnership “truly a role model for innovations in 21st Century scientific endeavors.” “The Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery is a creative leap of faith among a handful of visionary individuals willing to invest serious dollars to make their dream a reality,” Chancellor John Wiley said, discovery page 3
By Amanda Hoffstrom THE DAILY CARDINAL
TIME magazine recognized UW-Madison biologist James Thomson as one of 2008’s “World’s Most Influential People” in its May 12 issue, which hit stands Friday. The fifth-annual TIME 100 lists Thomson, along with Shinya Yamanaka of Japan’s Kyoto University, for their separate yet similar discoveries in November 2007. Each discovered a way to genetically repro-
gram human skin cells to act like embryonic stem cells. TIME’s entry called the discovery an achievement with “a potential that could be unlimited.” “It’s terrific that TIME has honored Dr. Thomson—and for a second time,” Carl Gulbrandsen, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation managing director, said in a statement. Gulbrandsen said Thomson thomson page 3
“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”