Drum circle draws lots of complaints

On Thursday nights, residents near Manito Park can hear the drumming from blocks away.

They can’t see it from their homes, but they know what that sound means.

It’s summer, and the drum circle has begun, when a group of mostly teenagers and some adults gather in the park for socializing and African-style drumming.

Neighbors say the drum circle – an informal event held that has been known to swell to more than 200 people – has become a haven for underage drinking, drugs, and fights.

They accuse the group of leaving a mess of beer bottles, food wrappers, condoms, and sometimes vomit from those who had a few too many. Some of the group use the park as a toilet, neighbors said.

“There is always the one bad apple that spoils the bunch,” said Sara Jacobs, who comes to the drum circle every week. “I’ve never seen any of that stuff, but if there are troublemakers, they need to be gone.”

Starting this month, the park board is paying overtime to staff the park with uniformed officers. Two extra-duty Spokane Police officers will sign up to take a shift at the park each week.

“This isn’t a new thing; we did the same thing last year,” said Spokane Police Capt. Steve Braun. “It’s nuisance control.”

But neighbors don’t want to curb the illegal activity; they want to drum out the event completely.

“There needs to be some accountability,” said Donna Bock, who lives near Manito.

Bock is one of the principal organizers of a group called Park Watch. In the past, she helped rally neighbors for a meeting with city police and park officials to discuss the counterculture gathering.

“It’s not just the drumming, it’s the garbage and the illegal activity,” Bock said. “What would happen if one of these kids got drunk and drove through my neighborhood, and hit somebody?”

On Friday mornings, Bock walks her dogs through the area known as drummer’s hill, just west of the Manito concession stands, and is disgusted by the mess left behind.

“How hard it is to throw away your garbage?” she said.

Bock and other neighbors say the kids linger in the park way past the 11 p.m. closing time.

The drums are supposed to stop at 10 p.m. under the city’s noise ordinance. But the kids tend to hang out, usually until they’re forced from the park by police.

After a June 17 drum circle, police returned to do one more sweep of the park after closing. They found seven teenagers hiding in the bushes in Duncan Gardens, drinking alcohol.

“We called their parents to come and get them,” said Detective J.D. Anderson, who was on patrol that night. Each of the teenagers was cited for trespassing.

“It’s going to get worse as the summer goes on,” Anderson said.

City police and park officials are seeking a solution to the long-standing complaint against the drummers.

Previously, the park board has installed additional lighting near the area drummers favor, and contracted with private security companies to patrol the area and summon police if there’s a problem.

Anderson said officers are keeping a journal of events from each shift at the drum circle, and forward all reports pertaining to the event to the patrol captain and to Police Chief Roger Bragdon.

“The captain is not usually going to read your typical trespass report,” Anderson said. “But in this case, it’s becoming a very public issue.”

The park is public and the police can’t force the group to leave, unless it becomes an issue of serious public safety, he said.

“The park is here for the kids to use,” said City Councilman Brad Stark, who is also on the park board. “But at the same time, we need to find that balance to maintain neighborhood integrity and public safety.”

Stark made two visits to the drum circle in the past few weeks, after hearing about the trouble from neighbors during a park board meeting.

On the first night, he saw a drug deal. During his second visit he watched a teenager take a swig from a bottle of Jack Daniels. She didn’t even try to conceal it.

“There is definitely a concern here,” Stark said.

People wanting to hold weddings in the park are charged for the use.

But the drum circle has no defined organizer or leader, and is considered spontaneous, so no one can be charged, Stark said.

“There has to be a compromise somewhere,” he said.

Anderson said the patrol officers, like the neighbors, would just like to see the circle go away forever.

“There’s even been talk of turning the sprinklers on, but the parks people were afraid they’d break the sprinkler heads off,” Anderson said.

Typically, there are only eight to 10 officers assigned to the entire south patrol area at night, and the constant calls for service to the park takes away from more important police work.

“You can’t be everywhere all the time,” Anderson said.

He acknowledged that not all of the people attending the drum circle are troublemakers.

Skyler Cover, 16, said he comes to hang out with his friends.

“It’s just something fun to do,” the teen said.

One night Cover was making his way through the crowd selling Pepsi for a $1 a can.

When it was time to go home, he picked up a Pepsi can lying on the ground and put it in the garbage.

On the same night, officers had to transport one young man from the park to the psychiatric ward at Sacred Heart Hospital. He was intoxicated, bipolar and schizophrenic. He wasn’t cited for being drunk, but was clearly causing a spectacle.

“I’d say about 75 percent of the kids here aren’t causing trouble,” Anderson said.

“Then there’s the other 25 percent who are going to ruin it for everyone else.”