Gasparilla stats:In 2011 there were approximately 350 Gasparilla-related arrests. This year it was two dozen. The crowds were comparably massive.
The new normal: This is not your older brother’s Gasparilla anymore. Nor is it the enabling, triage-type policing the way it used to be.
What the numbers say is this: “TPD message sent and TPD message enforced.”
Nobody likes getting busted, and no parent likes having to go get their busted kid. Another corollary of the new normal: better personnel deployment. Net result: Fewer rites of pissage and interruptus incidents of alley-oops.
Ultimately, self-policing–the best kind of policing–kicks in.
And let’s not forget this: The overflowing children’s parade the week before has been an ongoing reminder that crowd-control around residential neighborhoods needn’t be an absolute oxymoron for the main event when professionals are doing their jobs and policing drunks.