When the icy roads late Thursday night became too extreme for Madison’s finest, they issued a city-wide statement which announced the Madison Police Department was responding to “priority accidents only.”

The road conditions Thursday night were the worst circumstances seen in Madison in a long time, according to Joel DeSpain, spokesperson for the MPD.

Due to the high call volume of ice-related accidents, the MPD responded only to cases concerning injured motorists and blocked roadways from about 10:15 p.m. to about 11:45 p.m.

Lt. Dave McCaw of MPD said by 10:10 p.m. there were nine accidents in queue for officer response, including a 10-car accident and a six-car accident.

He added Sgt. Jason Sweeney, officer in charge and issuer of the priority response, held a second shift to help respond to the severe accidents.

Thursday night was a “numbers game,” according to McCaw, and the cops only responded to priority calls because the MPD has a definitive number of resources and only 32 officers on duty.

“Nonviolent, non-suspect things in progress get pushed down the queue until people say, ‘OK, we’re not going to wait any longer for this complaint’ and they resort to self-reporting,” McCaw said.

The ice caused some officers’ cars to get wedged at the bottom of hills, McCaw added, which resulted in a “constant juggling of resources.”

Additionally, DeSpain said the ice caused many cars to slide into curbs.

While walking to his girlfriend’s house, University of Wisconsin sophomore Michael Cella said he was sliding down Gorham Street and witnessed one car spin out of control and crash with another vehicle.

He added the police definitely had “their work cut out for them” Thursday, and he understands why keeping the roads clear was their main priority.

According to McCaw, the MPD occasionally prioritizes calls on Friday nights when officers perform detoxification and bar runs and bar fights are occurring. Because of the alcohol-related issues, the MPD will suspend non-emergency calls until there are more officers available.

Bar fights are often classified as priority incidents, adding they can potentially lead to homicides, McCaw said.

McCaw added Madison’s most recent homicides occurred at downtown bars.

One such instance occurred on Dec. 7, when 27-year-old race car mechanic Eduardo Cademartori was killed by a single blow to the head outside of Crave Restaurant and Lounge.

McCaw said the cops try to stop violence before it happens.

“We would be remiss if we didn’t try to stop people from becoming victims of crime,” he said.

Issuing a “priority accidents only” response has been an effective procedure for many years because there are not enough officers to respond to every call, he added.

“These things happen for just brief periods of time and anybody who is in danger or injured officers are still coming,” DeSpain said.

According to McCaw, there have been 16 incidents were the MPD had to resort to responding to priority accidents only since September.