WINONA, Minn. – Policing agencies in four counties are going into weekend stand-by postures to respond quickly to massive pop-up beer parties like occurred two weeks ago at Beaver Creek north of Elba. Winona County Sheriff Ron Ganrude said his counterparts in Fillmore, Olmsted and Wabasha counties have agreed to help as necessary. At Beaver Creek about 300 partiers congregated up a secluded dirt trail, lit two bonfires, milled around a couple hours with BYOB cartons, and juiced themselves up. It was a dangerous situation when three deputies arrived. They were outnumbered 300 to 3. The deputies were the only sheriff’s officers on duty in Winona County’s 600 square miles and had no backup to deal with belligerents and to disband the drunken hullabaloo. Now, Ganrude said, reinforcements from adjacent counties will be notified of a situation. So too, he said, will be game wardens and other state Natural Resources Department personnel. Other new measures, Ganrude said:
> A loose network of informants is tracking social-media chatter that surreptitiously promote parties in southeast Minnesota’s hidden nooks and crannies..
> Extra deputies are on duty on likely party nights.
> Volunteers with the sheriff’s Search Operations and Assistance Rescue team are checking known party spots.
> Bus drivers are on call to transport partiers too drunk to drive home — or to jail in the event of mass arrests.
Ganrude attributed the new steps for headingoff a party planned last weekend near Ridgeway. Nobody showed.
Earlier: How cops pre-empted yet another rural beer bash
Earlier: Cops caucus on early alerts for beer blowouts
Backroad challenges. Not since the era of moonshine bootlegging have deputies been faced with patrolling hundreds of remote backroads and trails up wooded coulees and through backwater swamps in Winona County. The current target: Covert beer parties at night. Hundreds of participants, many undeerage and mostly drunk and getting more so. This in remote and barely accessible meadows and clearins — and then getting into their vehicles and trying to navigate their way back out. Other dangers: Medical crises from falls and belligerence and from bonfires exploding into wildfires. Image: Steve Lunde