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What do you do when you can't force people to wear masks? Ames police explain

Students celebrated the end of the summer and the start of the semester with large parties in Ames last weekend. Here's why more people weren't arrested.

AMES, Iowa — The weekend before classes start at Iowa State University is usually the same every year. Even in 2020, last weekend seemed pretty similar to previous years to the Ames Police Department.

Welch Avenue, home to several college bars, as well as houses along Ash Avenue were packed with college kids celebrating the end of the summer and the start of a new semester last weekend.  

It's known as "801 Day." Any other year it would just be a gathering of college kids, but this year, Ames residents are worried about the potential spread of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. 

Universities across the country have already moved classes online because of COVID-19 cases spiking after parties. 

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Commander Jason Tuttle with the Ames Police Department said they knew there would be parties last weekend. Tuttle estimated that 801 Day officially began four or five years ago. 

The department hired some extra officers to make sure their presence was known in Campus Town. Tuttle said the comparisons on arrests from last year are similar to this year.

In 2019, 212 calls for service were made over the weekend before classes started. In 2020, there were around 220 calls. 

Ames police arrested 19 people last year and just three people this year. Tuttle said there's a reason why they didn't arrest so many people. 

"Part of that is because we're really being careful who we take to the jail because they don't want COVID introduced jail," Tuttle said. 

Tuttle noted that police have learned from previous experiences that breaking up parties might cause more harm than good. 

"You break up one party, they all go to the next party, and next thing you know, you have a 600 person party, and they start throwing beer cans and rocks at a police officer," Tuttle said. "So we're very strategic in how we break up those parties."

Police aren't able to enforce the use of masks since there isn't a law requiring them.

"We're not out there to be the mask police, we don't have the resources to do that. It's not at this point not a great use of our time and it's a very low, a very low priority for us," Tuttle explained. 

Resources were also limited last weekend because of the derecho. 

RELATED: Thousands without power as Ames cleanup continues

For now, officers are doing their best to help the university with educating students. 

"Both [ISU and Ames police] want the school year to be successful. We don't want our COVID cases to spike in two weeks," Tuttle said. 

"You know, we could be extremely devastated by losing, losing some of the revenue from the students living here if they all have to go home or move back home, whatever it may be."

WATCH: Complete coronavirus coverage on Local 5's YouTube page

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