Riley County Police Department told commissioners it was “breaking up with Fake Patty’s Day” in February. Major Scott Hajek said this meant the police department was breaking up with the notion of people entering Manhattan on Fake Patty’s Day thinking they have no responsibility, no accountability and are not required to follow the law.
“I think that message came through,” Hajek said.
K-State juniors Pruitt Nowlin and Weston Moody decided to start their day early on March 8 by walking around the streets of Ratone.
“I pay so much money to go to school here, and it’s kind of just a reward on the weekend,” Nowlin said. “It’s kind of getting shut down, but we’re going to make the best out of what we can. I’m actually sober for two years now, so I come out here and enjoy hanging out with people and hang out with my friends and watch people make stupid decisions, but it’s all part of it.”
Moody said while he doesn’t usually “partake in drinking activities,” he wanted to enjoy his first time going out on Fake Patty’s Day.
“We have a good time out here, but we’re too scared of the cops to get drunk right now,” Moody said.
RCPD took to social media to thank K-State and the community for their efforts in keeping Manhattan safe.
“This weekend, we witnessed something truly special: a collective effort to keep our community safe during the festivities,” RCPD wrote in an X post. “To our students, party-goers, and everyone who participated — THANK YOU. While we don’t have the final numbers yet, we noticed a marked improvement in behavior compared to previous years. This positive change didn’t happen by accident — it happened because of YOU.”
Hajek also noticed a more positive response toward the police, citing that he has seen “every iteration of Fake Patty’s Day since 2007.”
“We’re not the enemy, and we’re not an occupying force, you know, we’re part of the community,” Hajek said. “The police are part of the public, and so we try to be friendly with people, we want people to be friendly with us … being safe, following the laws, being in control of what you’re ingesting, in other words, not drinking so much that you can’t make good decisions, that advice is good every day of the year, but it is especially good on Fake Patty’s Day because people do drink more maybe than they tend to on a normal day, and we want people to have a plan and to be safe.”
One factor Hajek thought positively impacted the day was the weather.
“So last year it was much warmer,” Hajek said. “I think it got up into the mid-70s, and in the morning and at night it was in the 50s, so it was very decent warm weather. This year it was much colder in the morning and much colder at night, and during the day it got up to very comfortable temperature. So that is also a factor that I think helped control things, especially in Aggieville as the night went on.”
Hajek said official statistics on the day should be out by Friday.
“I don’t have an estimate right now,” Hajek said. “I don’t have any metrics on how many citations we issued or arrests that were made. They’re still compiling those. There just is a lot of paperwork to input before we can have those numbers. So we don’t quite have them yet.”
