Madison Halloween Violence

By Rachelle Bowden in News on Nov 1, 2004 3:25PM

Chicagoist is loving this photo from the Trib of a cop taking down Sponge Bob Squarepants in Madison this weekend.

Madison police are defending their use of pepper spray to clear Halloween partyers from the downtown area early this morning, or late last night, depending how you look at it. The police chief said there was a group of people where were determined to have a riot and that the police had to use the pepper spray on them after someone started a fire.

This is the 3rd year in a row that Madison's Halloween party has ended in violence. The party has gotten so huge that it attracts college students from all over the US and has gotten a shitload of publicity. Even Sports Illustrated on Campus had a mention of it. This year the crowd peaked at about 75,000 people shortly after midnight - that's about 10,000 more than last year. Authorities say they arrested about 450 people over the entire weekend. 1/3 were from out of state and, surprisingly, fewere than 13% were UW students.

The photos that would really be gems are the ones of the police accosting the partyers dressed in political costumes - Kerry, Bush, O'Reilly, etc. Anyone have any of those photos?