Madison Theater, a popular music venue on Madison Avenue in Covington, will cease hosting events for college-age audiences after a show at the theater on May 30 led to safety concerns and police involvement.
“What happened was a shame,” said theater owner Frank Hulefeld. “It really was very chaotic; I’m not going to deny that, but I felt like from the venue’s point of view we were very proactive.”
The incident occurred late in the night of Saturday, May 30 and into the subsequent morning, according police reports that CityBeat obtained through a public records request. Covington’s Alcohol Beverage Control Administrator Lydia Northcutt informed Hulefeld in a June 2 letter that the theater had potentially run afoul of Kentucky laws mandating that liquor licensees prevent their premises from becoming disorderly. The city held a hearing of its Alcohol Beverage Control Board Thursday morning to discuss the situation and possible solutions.
CityBeat also requested body cam footage from the incident, but our request was denied as the footage is still being used in an active investigation, according to Covington Police.
Hulefeld said the venue recorded the presence of 947 people at the venue the night of the incident, including venue staff members. Multiple acts were playing that night, but the one that led to the issues occurred in the main room of the theater, where a DJ was playing to a crowd of mostly college students from UC and Xavier.
“What ended up happening is all these groups of people were interconnected because they were part of the UC and Xavier African-American Greek fraternity system,” Hulefeld said. “So, they all were two degrees of separation from knowing each other. It was a party that was promoted to celebrate a lot of the students graduating. I think they were just in a good mood, word spread quickly, more people showed up than any of us had anticipated.”
Members of the Greek community did not attend Thursday’s hearing.
Three officers were staffing the event as a security detail that night. As the crowd grew in size, people began stacking out onto the sidewalk, waiting to the enter the building. Finally, the theater decided to cut the show off early.
“After conversing with officers on duty, more and more we kept asking people, ‘Hey, look, we’re not letting any more people in, can you guys please go home?'” said Hulefeld. “They didn’t listen.”
Additional police units began arriving around 11 p.m, according to police reports. Police reports also indicate the crowd’s size had grown too large, potentially risking blocked exits.
Police closed off the 700 block of Madison Avenue to give room for the crowd to exit the theater. Police reports state the theater stopped the show at 11:37 p.m. As the crowd moved out of the theater the police “sounded the airhorn, the siren, and activated the emergency equipment in an attempt to gain the attention of the crowd. We then made announcements to disperse.” It took about 20 minutes for the theater to empty out, according to police reports.
Police argue they had issued multiple commands to the crowd to disperse and move southward out of the area, but the crowd failed to do so in a timely fashion. The police used pepper ball guns, nonlethal riot control weapons resembling paint ball guns, to disperse the crowd.
“Officers targeted the roadway in front of the crowd with pepper balls to maximize the effect of the OC powder and prevent injury from direct impact on participants in the crowd,” reads one report. “This had the intended effect: The crowd immediately left the area.”
The police made a single arrest of 19-year-old Cincinnati resident Dahron Jackson, who was charged with disorderly conduct and public intoxication. Jackson was arraigned in Kenton County on Monday and has a diversion hearing scheduled for July 27.
“In the last 28 months, we’ve done close to 500 shows and never had an incident,” Hulefeld told CityBeat.
The city board did not place any binding conditions on the venue or revoke its liquor license; the board members seemed pleased with the measures the theater was planning to take to avoid similar incidents.
“Madison Theater has been a great partner for the city, and you’ve been here a long time pulling off some amazing events,” said City Manager Sharmili Reddy. “This one was an unfortunate one, and I think I’m really encouraged that you’re already looking at proactive ways to prevent these things from happening.”
“I think there’s an easy solution to make sure this doesn’t happen again, which is just we’re not going to do any more college parties…,” Hulefeld said. “It’s not really a part of our traditional bookings. We book more national touring acts and local bands.”
Hulefeld didn’t seem to hold any ill will towards the crowd.
“The kids were so polite and friendly and accommodating,” Hulefeld said. “It was just, you get that energy of a lot of kids in their early 20s together… they just made a mistake.”
This story has been updated.
