[media-credit name=’Derek Montgomery’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]Halloween may be said and done, but police and student actions during the riotous weekend are still spurring talk.

Alds. Austin King, District 8, and Mike Verveer, District 4, along with the University of Wisconsin Associated Students of Madison, are putting on a presentation tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the On Wisconsin Room in the Memorial Union. The presentation will feature police and student dialogue and police video will be shown.

King and Verveer said they heard their student constituents were frustrated with the police department and individual police officer behavior during Halloween.

According to Verveer, the discussion will help facilitate decisions on how to plan for Halloween next year.

“It will help to hear suggestions from students and others to try to prevent having a fourth year in a row … ending with use of pepper spray with riot cops,” Verveer said. “My position is don’t end it — mend it.”

King said it will be beneficial for students to watch police videos of Halloween patrons throwing debris or punching police horses.

“Students can watch videos of people throwing the garbage can and punching the horses. Then they can go through the police logic as to breaking it up,” King said.

Verveer said many people felt the use of pepper spray was excessive and a number of innocent bystanders were affected.

“If you’ve been complaining [about Halloween] and you don’t show up to the discussion, that’s like not voting,” King said. “This is the chance for students to talk directly to people who make decisions about police policy and let them know how [they] feel.”

King added there is a “disconnection” where students are frustrated with the police department for some legitimate reasons and where police officers are frustrated with some students’ lack of respect and behavior during the weekend.

Kristina Mueller, Associated Students of Madison 2004 Halloween chair, said the discussion will provide an opportunity for students to speak out and also understand the riot handling.

“It gives students a chance to see the videos that police took during Halloween and it gives them a chance to ask questions,” Mueller said.

Mueller noted students would be able to see what the police directly saw and get a chance to understand their actions.

“This way people will see exactly what the police saw and why they reacted [the way] they did,” Mueller added.

Assistant Chief of Police Luis Yudice said the video footage consists of key time frames that surrounded the “mini-riot” Saturday night.

“It will give people a perspective as to why we reacted and what we decided to do,” Yudice said.

The police department filmed the event from an overhead camera that was fed into the command station at the University Inn. There were also officers stationed on rooftops filming the event along with people using private cameras.

“[Students] need to see what happened for themselves,” Yudice said. “They need to hear our explanation and they need to examine the steps that were taken.”

The Saturday night madness capped at 75,000 to 80,000 people filling the downtown streets.

At 1:30 a.m. Sunday approximately 5,000 people gathered on the 500 block of State Street and began pushing, yelling and dancing. A number of fights broke out before and during the disturbance, while several police-mounted horses were hit with objects and beaten.

The overall percentages of UW student offenses dropped significantly in comparison to last year. The majority of UW student offenses related to alcohol and contributed to 12 percent of the total crime. There were approximately 450 arrests made throughout the weekend and the city spent approximately $470,000 to fund police efforts.