When Madison groggily woke up Sunday morning, there was no news footage of rioters breaking windows, no hastily constructed bonfires burning out of control and no large scale fights. What the city did see, however, were police blinding revelers with pepper spray, blockading bar exits and permitting their equestrian friends to cover State Street with their ungodly smelling excrement.

Simply put, the Madison Police Department — in conjunction with virtually every law enforcement agency this side of the Louisiana Purchase — terribly overreacted. And rather than apologizing to partygoers for police actions reminiscent of the Madison of yesteryear, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz took a page from "The Prince" and hinted at declaring marshal law for next year's celebration, all the while congratulating the police on a job well done.

It's a good thing Mr. Cieslewicz was not on State Street anytime after 1:30, for had he been present he would have had the bruises and cuts to prove it. Had Mayor Dave asked a random police officer where he could get some late night food, he would have been beaten with batons, but not the kind that sparkle in Memorial Day parades. Had Mayor Dave lived on State Street, he would have been refused entry. And even better yet, had Mayor Dave attempted to save a helpless soul from being trampled by one of the many horses charging down the street, the Madison Police Department would have thanked him with a big serving of pepper spray to the face.

In planning a response to the Halloween festivities, Mayor Dave, Police Chief Noble Wray and other city officials appeared convinced of the imminence of a Saturday night riot. It was this mindset that allowed police to act without any fear of reprisal and deliver punishments that far outweighed the crime. Apparently the city conveniently forgot that Halloweens prior to 2002 were widely peaceful and went along without any major controversy.

Yes, the crowd mocked the police and chanted "We want tear gas!" But does this truly justify the use of force on behalf of the police department? Should police not be held to a higher standard than the average citizen? The crowd was chanting, not looting. The slogans that covered State Street for a short while came from a combination of the liberal use of tear gas over the past several years and the department's pre-Halloween threats to deal with the revelers in kind.

And yes, projectiles were hurled at police. However, the objects flying through the air were not Molotov cocktails nor were they even glass bottles. Instead, revelers threw plastic cups and ice cubes at the over-zealous cops, and the officers' response would put even Hammurabi to shame.

While police officers employed all means necessary to disperse the non-violent crowd on State Street, they took the opposite approach and barricaded the doors of bars, preventing any bargoer from leaving the establishment. This was obviously an effort to control the number of individuals on State Street itself, but it is wholly inappropriate. The state should have allowed bars to stay open all night; that way there would not be a rapid influx of drunk partiers to State Street and the cops would not fall under such strict scrutiny.

The city's decision to forcibly prevent individuals from leaving bars sums up where the city's view on Halloween in Madison truly lies: the end justifies the means. The city was willing to do virtually everything in their power to prevent windows from being broken, bonfires from being started, and fights from being provoked. As we all know, the police took a preemptive strike at the revelers, and none of their fears materialized. But then again, we haven't exactly found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

To be fair, Friday night and Saturday night prior to 2 o'clock, the police acted in a responsible manner. Arresting individuals for public intoxication and urination or for sporting glass beer bottles is well within their power and elicits few complaints.

However, when police act in an unrelenting and brutal fashion to prevent a riot is when the line needs to be drawn, and Mayor Dave not only toed the line, he obliterated it. It is disappointing that a mayor who has championed many critical causes has modeled himself after Bill Dyke and Richard J. Daley rather than Paul Soglin.

Robert S. Hunger ([email protected]) is the editorial page content editor and is a senior majoring in political science and journalism.