While many ISU students have Veishea celebrations on their minds, ISU and Ames Police departments gear up to keep students and visitors safe during the weeklong celebrations.

Every year, ISU and Ames police departments partner to keep students and visitors safe during the celebrations. Jason Tuttle, patrol commander with Ames Police, said both departments have already had an all-agency meeting with the Story County Sheriff’s Office, CyRide, Ames Fire Department, Story County attorney’s office and the city attorney to collaborate during the week of Veishea.

“I think a good way to show that collaboration is that Story County provides us three transport vehicles with their staff, so they will go to the Armory for ISU, go to the fire department and pick up people there and kind of make a rotation,” Tuttle said. “They’ll go back and forth [to the Story County Jail] for us so we’re not taking our employees away from the action. We have to pull in those resources.”

Anthony Greiter, who is in charge of community outreach for ISU Police, said they will run what he calls a “split two-man” car with one ISU officer and one Story County deputy in each patrol car. Greiter said this plan is beneficial because they can send one car to an incident instead of two, and ISU Police is more knowledgeable of the layout of campus and the best routes to take.

Both departments began preparing for Veishea at the start of the second semester.

“We always plan for a big crowd. More students means more friends, more people at Veishea, so I expect there to probably be record numbers of people,” Greiter said. “All week long is busier than normal, and I think a big part of that is alumni who come in. The really busy times that we staff most people is evening and into overnights Thursday, Friday [and] Saturday.”

Ames and ISU police will increase staffing throughout the week and even more so during the Veishea weekend.

“At any given point, we probably have 50 to 100 officers on the streets of Ames [on] Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights,” Greiter said about ISU, Ames and Story County officers.

Ames Police will increase the number of patrol officers from the usual six or seven to about 20 officers in the Campustown area. Tuttle said they will have eight patrol vehicles, mostly doubled up, five utility response officers who back up on some calls and the Safe Neighborhoods Team officers who deal with parties and educating residents on how to have a safe Veishea .

There will also be six foot officers, four bike officers and other officers for prison transports, crossing guard duties and parking duties. Ames Police will have a command post and paramedic stationed at the fire house in Campustown on Friday and Saturday nights for booking arrestees and to better coordinate with ISU Police.

There will also be a paramedic stationed outside of the Armory to assess arrestees for the ISU Police.

Greiter has also been working since early February on preparing students for Veishea through the annual spring campaign which promotes safety for the week of celebrations and events. In 2006, the Department of Public Safety introduced Frank the Flamingo for the first time, which grew “widely popular” with students for various reasons, Greiter said.

This year, Greiter said ISU police are using the campaign “Sarge Says” — an adaptation of Simon Says — to connect with students.

“In the past, it’s been a fairly specific message. We’ve done ‘See Something, Say Something,’ which was if you see something suspicious, let us know so we can look into it,” Greiter said. “We’ve done ‘The Wingman’ campaign: be a good wingman and keep your friends at a safe level when you’re out partying. We’ve done ‘Don’t be that Guy,’ which kind of depicted different scenes that showed negative ways to draw our attention to you.”

Greiter said “Sarge Says” will offer positive messages and tips to prevent any incidents.

“‘Sarge Says’ leaves it open so we can still use that ‘be a wingman’ or ‘Sarge says see something, say something,” Greiter said about the campaign.

Both Ames and ISU police will hand out T-shirts with the “Sarge Says” image on Central Campus and at the fire station. Greiter said police also encourage students to follow them on Facebook and Twitter, as they “are well-established now.”

“You show up to the police car that’s parked there, you put the non-emergency numbers in your phone, you show us it’s saved as a contact and you get a T-shirt. It’s a very simple trade-off,” Greiter said. “It allows people to contact us more easily and we give away free stuff, which is never a bad thing in college.”

Greiter said the goal of the campaign is to connect with students whether through the campaign or through social media. Having students put contacts in their phones allows them to reach the police easier, and Greiter said the work has paid off.

“What we’ve seen in the past two years is after the first few years when we were pushing it, people would come to us and say, ‘I already have the numbers in my phone,’” Greiter said. “Last year, it was overwhelming how many people didn’t have to put the numbers in their cell phones because it was already there.”