CJ McCurty knows what it looks like when a booze-fueled good time turns into trouble.

The Department of Public Safety detective, who has been with DPS for 19 years, is still bothered by his investigation into a January 2015 incident, when an intoxicated student fell down a flight of stairs and ended up with permanent brain damage.

“His friends just really weren’t concerned with what had happened. And he’d almost lost his life,” McCurty said.

DPS handles a lot of different cases at Syracuse University, including robberies, harassment, damage to property and sexual assault. But nothing keeps the officers busier than alcohol violations.

An examination of DPS crime logs found that the university’s officers dealt with intoxicated students far more than with any other issue.

From Jan. 6 to March 6, “intoxicated persons” made up 27 percent of DPS’s caseload, according to the DPS website. That’s more than any other category, and more than the amount of the next two most frequent offenses combined, with personal injury at 12.5 percent and larceny at 12 percent.

Over that 60-­day period, DPS officers issued 101 citations to intoxicated students.

Another 43 incidents dealing with other crimes and violations were listed as having alcohol as a likely contributing factor.

“There’s a lot of things connected to losing control with alcohol,” McCurty said. “And that brings unsafe conditions for students so that’s really what our major concern is.”

McCurty said intoxication is the key factor that leads to incidents such as drunken brawls and stolen possessions. He added that it creates generally unsafe environments, especially off campus.

“When we see somebody walking down the street with a can of beer in their hands, it’s not like, ‘Oh my God, they got a beer,’” McCurty said. “But when people get intoxicated to the point where they lose control.”

In addition to the 60­-day logs, the department releases its annual security report each October. The report contains detailed crime statistics for the past three calendar years, and includes sections on sex offenses, intimidation, vandalism and drug and liquor law violations.

In each year since 2008, drinking violations have topped the list. With an average of 1,054 annual liquor law violations over the past seven years, the numbers have fluctuated only a few times.

The numbers dropped drastically in 2014. After there were a total of 1,316 cases in 2013, there were only 926 cases in 2014, resulting in a 29.6 percent decrease. The university was ranked the No. 1 party school by The Princeton Review in summer 2014.

McCurty said DPS wasn’t told to crack down any harder or act any stricter as a result of the ranking.

“I know a lot of people made an issue because (Chancellor Kent Syverud) did have something to do with shutting down Castle Court, which we were getting a lot of complaints about long before he came,” McCurty said. “But as far as making any changes based on the ranking, I think that was overplayed.”

Editor’s Note: Over the past month, The Daily Orange has collaborated with the Department of Newspaper and Online Journalism at Syracuse University on a series of stories relating to alcohol culture on the SU campus. Multiple stories will appear in The D.O. in the coming days.

Published on April 8, 2016 at 8:07 pm

Contact Tiffany: timoran@syr.edu