Both Darien police and students preparing for ‘Mischief Night’

Written by Emily Clarke, Teen Times Reporter
Wednesday, 28 October 2009 11:00

Each year, teenagers go out in their neighborhoods and cause trouble on mischief night. This year, mischief night is on a Friday and this means some residents may have to look forward to cleaning up their neighborhoods a lot the next morning.

Teenagers in Darien High School have mixed feelings about this night and some are fairly uneasy about going out. There are also many things kids do when they go out on mischief night that may annoy most people. “I’m gonna go clickering!” says one student who asked to remain anonymous. “It’s when you take your own clicker and change the neighbors’ channels and freak them out.” She has never done anything on mischief night, but she says this year that might change. “It’s really good it’s on a Friday night this year, it will be exciting!” she added.

“It’s not as bad now as the past years have been in Darien,” Detective Sam Boccuzzi of the Darien Police Youth Division, said about mischief night.

Detective Boccuzzi explained what the Darien Police are doing to prevent anything bad from happening and to keep everyone safe. The police department has extra officers patrolling on duty that night and on the night of Halloween. “We have 51 officers total and 8 on patrol that night,” Detective Boccuzzi said.

He said the most popular place for teenagers to go on mischief night is on Mansfield Avenue and around Royle School. The normal mischief that goes on that night is egged houses, egged cars, smashed mailboxes, and “TP-ing” or spreading toilet paper on bushes and trees. To prevent kids from egging your house or TP-ing your bushes, Detective Boccuzzi says everyone should keep their house lights on.

“Darien has not considered a type of ban on mischief night,” he said, such as a curfew or other regulation.

Rhiannon Ross and Melanie Tzenova are sophomores at DHS and they definitely plan on going out on mischief night. “This is the first year I want to do something on that night,” Rhiannon said.

“We should do something together!” Melanie added. Neither of them has been out previous nights but they have siblings who have gone out, but nothing too crazy has happened, they said.

Some students are stuck in a situation where they want to go out and have fun on that night, but their parents are not allowing them. “I want to go out, but my parents won’t let me,” said another student.

Others want to, but their sports teams aren’t allowing them. “Yeah, I heard the volleyball team isn’t allowed to go out on mischief night or the night of Halloween,” says another student. Students in the past have done things on that night that made the coaches ban it for everyone. Now, because of past incidents, some athletes are not allowed to go out on mischief night or Halloween night.

Another student says he has been out the past couple of years and “might be going out this year. Last year I went out and we threw cupcakes at peoples’ doors and TP’d their trees and bushes.”