Mischief Night

Mischief Night in Camden - once mostly soaped-up car windows and splattered egg-yolked-houses, and later a sea of arson fires - has been pretty quiet since 1991. And authorities aim to see that that streak continues on Mischief Night this Thursday. "We'll be out in force," said Camden Police spokesman Lt. Joseph Richardson. The entire 350-officer department will be mobilized, he said, including undercover operatives, and would be backed up by sheriff's deputies, the Camden County Prosecutor's Office and even the county's probation officials.

Maybe it was the cold, rainy weather Friday. Or perhaps parents kept their children inside on Mischief Night. Of course, there were extra police on patrol in many communities, which may have dampened youthful enthusiasm for breaking or soaping windows. Whatever the reason, police in Lower and Middle Bucks reported a relatively prank-free Halloween eve. Bristol and Northampton Townships reported no Mischief Night or Halloween- related arrests. Middletown's weekend curfew of 11 p.m. was violated by several juveniles.

West Chester resident Robin Jones woke up yesterday morning to find that her Toyota truck had turned into a Mazda. Sometime between 5 p.m. Tuesday and 7 a.m. yesterday, someone had spray- painted the name Mazda on the tailgate of Jones' white pickup, parked on the 500 block of West Gay Street. Tuesday was Mischief Night - a night many residents throughout the region now find more frightening than Halloween. From 3 to 6 a.m. yesterday, West Chester police filled six blotter pages of incidents involving vandals who had slashed tires or sprayed, egged, or rocked over more 60 cars in the borough.

Fires ripping through abandoned buildings. Glass bottles and firebombs hurled at oncoming cars. Pumpkins, eggs and bricks smashing through storefront windows. All of it belongs to Mischief Night, the eerie eve of Halloween when tricksters prowl the streets in search of the perfect prank - and occasionally, the perfect crime. This year, however, here's who will be sharing the streets with mischief-makers: uniformed officers, undercover police, and community-oriented police (COP)

Camden residents and police stamped out Mischief Night fires and vandalism before they began last night. More than 800 Camden residents took to the streets armed only with flashlights, shirts and hats to protect their community from a reprise of last year's Mischief Night, with its 133 random fires, most set by youthful vandals. Efforts of the police and volunteers - and a 6 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew for anyone under 18 - appeared successful late last night. The streets were quiet, save for the sound of one state police and two National Guard helicopters above.

Scores of youths torched buildings, stoned cars and smashed windows in Camden last night as widespread violence swept the city for the second consecutive year on "Mischief Night" despite a massive show of police force. More than 70 fires - a record number - were set, at least six in occupied houses and more than 10 in vacant buildings. A five-alarm fire heavily damaged the Crazy discount store at Kaighn and Haddon Avenues. Other fires were set in cars and trash piles, and water pressure fell to dangerous levels.

Hundreds of volunteers are set to patrol their Camden neighborhoods with police on Oct. 30, "Mischief Night," to discourage arson and other crimes, Camden police say. Citizens will be wearing hats with "Crime Prevention" written on them, Deputy Police Chief Edwin Figueroa said. The crime-prevention plan, which police had been developing for most of the year, was approved by city agencies Oct. 4, Figueroa said. As part of the plan, members of the Camden City Human Services Department will take city children, up to age 15, to movies out of the area.

Roses and bon-bons, it wasn't. But a 2 1/2-hour reception last night, complete with hors d'oeuvres, chamber music and free tours of the New Jersey State Aquarium, was virtually a romantic interlude for Camden's city administration and its newest darlings: the volunteers who patrolled the city on Mischief Night. "This is a fantastic way to say to the people of Camden, we're proud of you," said Mayor Aaron A. Thompson as he stood in the lobby of the aquarium, greeting some of the 1,000 or so guests he described as "volunteers and well- wishers.

Camden city officials said yesterday that Mischief Night was a success for the third year in a row, despite an increase in the number of fires this year over last. And they shrugged off those who challenged their estimate of the number of anti-arson volunteers out that night. At a news conference yesterday in Camden's city hall, Novella Hinson, commissioner of the city Department of Community Affairs, estimated that there were nearly 2,000 volunteers on the streets to help prevent fires.

It was supposed to be a training session for the volunteers recruited as part of Camden's plan to prevent Mischief Night arson fires. But before the meeting was over, it felt like a pep rally. Mayor Aaron A. Thompson drew repeated cheers last night when he pledged to prosecute arsonists "to the full extent of the law," and a Camden police official said the first-time effort was destined to succeed. "God is on our side," said Sgt. Gilbert "Whip" Wilson, the Police Department's point man on the Anti-Arson Task Force.

Mischief Night in Camden passed without major incidents Sunday, surprising even longtime veterans of the Camden Police Department. "It was quieter than normal," said Deputy Chief Ed Hargis, noting the city had only two fires and a single shooting. In 1991, more than 100 fires lit the city, and more than 85 buildings burned. Since then, Camden has approached the night before Halloween with trepidation and increased community and police patrols. On Sunday, firefighters were called shortly after 8 p.m. to battle a two-alarmer in East Camden at an abandoned house in the 200 block of Morse Street.

Though Uncle Tupelo gets all the credit, Freakwater kick-started the alt-country sound with the release of "Freakwater" in 1989, a year before Tupelow's "No Depression. " Freakwater's Janet Bean (formerly of Eleventh Dream Day) and Catherine Irwin have been best friends since childhood, and it shows in the homespun harmonies, occasionally dark humor and sharp observance to detail that can only come from women's conversations. "Thinking of You" is their first album in six years for their longtime home, Chicago experimental label Thrill Jockey.

There probably aren't too many people down with dressing up like Michael Jackson these days, but you'll get your chance at Silk City on Sunday. The "Michael Jackson and Madonna Halloween" is only one of the bashes being thrown in the area this witching season. The costume party will be hosted by DJ Darth Vader and will feature a lip-sync contest. The A.C. Expressway will become the highway to hell as it escorts you to Club Tru's "Saturday Night Evil. " Plasmic Honey will visit from New York to wreak havoc with Paulie Day, DJ Dominator, Jason E and Skyline.

When adults spin yarns of their childhood misadventures, they generally use words such as ornery or rascal to describe themselves. They don't want to admit that, on rare occasions, they were just plain bad. Or mischievous, at the very least. If little ears are close enough to hear, the grown-ups will inevitably utter that hackneyed disclaimer: It was a different world back then. Maybe the world was different. Getting into a little bit of harmless mischief every now and then used to be a sign of a healthy curiosity about life in a kid. Today, even Mischief Night isn't what it used to be. When I was a kid, Mischief Night was in vogue.

When Pete Toso started his pizzeria, called A Slice of New York, he thought he was getting a piece of the American dream. Instead, he got a Camden nightmare. First there were the Mischief Night arsons that blazed against the Camden skies in the 1990s. He ignored those and invested $100,000 in a shell to create his shop. Then there was the light-rail construction project that rumbled through Camden's downtown, shaking up his pizzeria and digging up the street outside. Business at his shop fell off 30 percent during the construction.

Each year, Halloween scares up a weird Jekyll and Hyde kind of split personality in this mild-mannered mother of two. Shortly before Labor Day, the evil Mrs. Hyde within me grouses, "Not yet, not yet," as skull-shaped flashlights, glow-in-the-dark Frankenstein figures and other Halloween gewgaws infiltrate local dollar stores. That's when those slick catalogs with the enticing pictures of frighteningly authentic - and expensive - costumes also start slithering through our mail slot.

It was Mischief Night in Norristown, and Ernest W. Scott Jr., now accused of masterminding a marijuana ring in Montgomery County, linked arms with other politicians in an antidrug march. The Norristown Borough councilman walked last October from the west end of town to the steps of the courthouse in "the Hill," the predominantly African American neighborhood where his family's roots burrow at least five generations deep. Blocks away stood the Ebenezer Methodist Church, from whose pulpit he sometimes urged residents to vote for candidates who would take on the absentee landlords, the drug-related shootings, and the other ills that gutted many of the surrounding rowhouses.

On the anniversary of the city's infamous torching a decade ago, residents and police say they believe vigilance will continue to keep the real demons away on Mischief Night this year. Camden police, Riverfront State Prison police, and plainclothes officers from the Camden County Prosecutor's Office are expected to walk the streets with hundreds of residents to deter wrongdoers. In all, more than 100 officers will escort youngsters to Camden's skating rink and will be on the lookout for drug dealers and arsonists.

City education officials last night defended the searching of about 1,300 students at Woodrow Wilson High School, saying it was meant to counter fears of Mischief Night violence. The searches took place for five days, ending yesterday, and involved frisking students and searching the backpacks and lockers of each student, school board members said. The searches yielded "some implements that can create some damage if used," interim Superintendent Theodore Johnson said. He declined to elaborate, but said he supported the measures.

Civilian volunteers and police officers outnumbered mischief-makers on the streets of the city last night as neighbors banded together to discourage the vandalism and arson that once plagued Camden on Mischief Night. With the exception of one suspected arson fire at an abandoned house, it was a quiet night in the city. Men, women and children, some carrying flashlights and sporting "Camden Crime Watch" caps and windbreakers, gathered at the Holy Name Church in North Camden last night before beginning a march around their neighborhood just before 7. They bowed their heads in prayer before making their way out into the chilly night for a mission that would last almost three hours.