QuickTake:

Police leaders said officers over the holiday balanced a need for responding to emergency calls with dispatching officers to fireworks complaints.

Eugene and Springfield police fielded dozens of fireworks complaints over the Fourth of July holiday but issued zero citations.

“To maximize public safety, officers utilized a strategy centered on high-visibility patrols, deterrence, and communication,” Springfield Deputy Chief George Crolly said in a statement Friday, July 10.

In Eugene, police leaders said emergencies kept officers too busy to respond to all fireworks complaints.

Springfield fireworks 

Unlike Eugene, Springfield allows legal consumer fireworks to be fired off on the July Fourth holiday. 

Statewide, certain categories of fireworks are considered illegal, such as “sky lanterns, missiles, rockets, firecrackers, cherry bombs, M-80s, Roman candles, and bottle rockets,” according to the Oregon Fire Marshal’s website.

But in Springfield, multihued exploding fireworks were a common sight in many neighborhoods as the sky darkened July 4.

Crolly said Springfield police received more than 75 calls about fireworks over the holiday. The number of calls “exceeded the Department’s ability to respond to every reported violation,” Crolly added.

“Rather than attempting to respond to every fireworks complaint, officers focused on maintaining a visible presence in neighborhoods experiencing increased activity, engaging with residents, and encouraging voluntary compliance with Oregon’s fireworks laws,” Crolly said.

Crolly said no fireworks were seized, and he added that the police department’s approach allowed officers to keep free for calls “with an immediate threat to public safety.”

“In many cases, the visible presence of officers resulted in individuals voluntarily discontinuing the use of illegal fireworks without the need for enforcement action,” Crolly said.

Eugene fireworks 

In Eugene, fireworks are banned.

But police received 89 calls about fireworks on July Fourth, after 21 calls the previous day, according to a news release.

The city’s advisory Police Commission discussed the numbers — and lack of citations — at a meeting Thursday, July 9.

“If we continue to only rely on education, and that’s not moving the needle, we may have to think about how we can do a better job of enforcing these things so that people understand that in this community there are consequences,” commission member and City Councilor Jennifer Yeh said at the Thursday meeting.

Eugene Police Deputy Chief Jake Burke disputed the idea that officers have been told to not issue citations. He said “there’s never been a discussion” about limiting officers solely to educating citizens. 

Instead, officers have discretion about whether to issue a citation, Burke said.

Burke described a busy day for police July 4, which he said affected the response to fireworks complaints. Police responded to a fatal vehicle accident, a call about a person with a gun downtown (leading to an arrest on weapons charges), and a hit-and-run collision between a vehicle and bicycle (with the bicyclist sustaining injuries that were not life-threatening), among other calls requesting an officer response, according to a news release.

Of the 89 fireworks calls, “we were able to dispatch to about 40 or so,” Burke said. 

No fireworks were seized, Burke said.

“Part of that was just being able to go, make sure nobody was hurt … and then we were able to ask them to put their stuff away and move on to the other calls that we were dealing with,” Burke said.