Judge Throws Out City's Black College Reunion Traffic Plan

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The NAACP and several Black college students convinced a federal judge to stop the city's plans to restrict car access to city beaches during the Black College Reunion earlier this month.
However, despite what had been a relatively peaceful weekend, two men were shot — one fatally — and a woman was stabbed early in the morning of the final day of  festivities.
The traffic plan approved by the city would have allowed beach access only to residents, hotel guests, and those conducting business.  Others would have had to park their cars and take a shuttle.
But the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said in papers filed in federal court in Orlando prior to the weekend that the plan would have denied the rights of equal protection and assembly to the Black students who showed up for the three days of revelry. Additionally, the suit pointed out that no similar traffic plans were enforced for the 500,000 visitors who attended Bike Week or the 150,000 visitors at spring break — events that are attended mainly by White visitors.
A computer-assisted review of police records found that more people were arrested during Black College Reunion  last year than other Daytona Beach events such as Bike Week and spring break. Police averaged 550 traffic tickets and 70 arrests a day, mostly for minor offenses, during the three days of beachside revelry by Black college students, according to the analysis by The Orlando Sentinel. The newspaper's review showed that four out of five people arrested or given tickets that weekend were Black.
U.S. District Judge Patricia Fawsett ruled against the traffic plan, saying that the city had "not proffered a rational explanation" of why the Black college weekend should be singled out.
After earlier estimates of a crowd of between 75,000 and 80,000, on Saturday night, Daytona Beach Police Lt. Dennis Jones revised that estimate upwards.
"It's now close to 100,000 because of the backups on the bridges. We have recalculated and determined that it is close to last year," Jones says, referring to the 100,000 visitors who attended in 1998.
Despite the three incidents of violence, city officials seemed pleased with the way the weekend went. According to police, they made about 350 arrests over the course of the entire weekend, 10 percent of them involving students. By 9 p.m. Saturday, police had made 237 arrests, including nine for weapons violations. That was down from the 322 arrests reported by the same time last year.
Mayor Bud Asher, who spent much of the weekend walking through the crowds along Atlantic Avenue, says he thought the event was "successful in that we felt the kids were trying to cooperate. They had the proper attitude, and they were more respectful....[There was] no street violence of any kind, no assaults on police officers, and none of our citizens were hurt in any way, shape or form."
Last year's reunion weekend erupted in violence when an Orlando man was killed and four police officers were wounded during a shootout.