Concern over what appeared to be a two-week-long College Park crime wave prompted police to turn out in full force this weekend, and students took note of the increased precautions during weekend revelry.

Both Prince George’s County and University Police – advertised as being “in the area” by a large, flashing traffic sign on Route 1 – maintained high visibility in response to the city’s recent surge in gun-related crime by taking a harder look at city pedestrians and bar patrons and positioning squad cars to suggest an ominous presence downtown.

“They had two missions,” said University Police spokeswoman Maj. Cathy Atwell of officers assigned to downtown. “One was to identify potential victims and reduce their likelihood of being a victim. The other was to identify potential suspects and intervene early before they committed a crime or got into trouble. Or if they did something, be there quickly.”

And there was some early success with stepped-up patrols: University Police did not report any serious crimes or respond to any serious incidents this weekend, Atwell said.

“I think it’s good,” said a Santa Fe Café waitress working Saturday night. “People thought they could get away with anything in College Park. Now I feel safer because no one’s going to do anything when there’s a cop right there.”

The waitress asked that her name be withheld because her manager had not authorized her to speak.

At Cornerstone Grill and Loft, where management had pledged to enforce a door policy that excludes non-students and non-regulars, bar patrons noticed a crackdown on IDs, although some were unsure of how consistently it was being enforced.

“This guy grilled my ID so hard,” one man told a friend in the men’s room. “I’ve been here four or five times and they never give me a hard time.”

Later, a group of girls could be seen flirting their way past bouncers, despite the absence of university-issued IDs. And after the bars closed, Dennis Jones, a 22-year-old Northeast Washington resident, said even though he’s not a university student, he got in through a “connect” by showing his University of the District of Columbia ID.

“College Park is kind of a sweet area,” Jones said. “The crowd is good, but I was like only one of ten black people in the bar.”

His friend, Norman Brooks, also of Northeast Washington, said the policy of checking university IDs isn’t a bad one, but said it didn’t address the source of crime – economically disadvantaged people – and could be discriminatory.

“Poverty is crime … people don’t rob for fun. They rob because they don’t have money,” Brooks said. “If you go to college then [robbers] know you have money. [They] steal your mom’s credit card, they have 30 minutes of fun.”

Part of the weekend’s collaborative police front included the University Police’s six-man Strategic Enforcement Response Team, designed to intimidate criminals and deter them from coming into College Park, Atwell said.

“It’s a clear message that says, ‘Do not come to College Park, you will be apprehended,'” she said.

Contact reporter Kevin Rector at rectordbk@gmail.com.