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Police Bust Scams, Arrest 26 At Stadium

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By KEITH MORELLI

kmorelli@tampatrib.com

Published: February 3, 2009

TAMPA - Compared to a regular ol' football game at Raymond James Stadium, fans at Super Bowl XLIII were fairly well-behaved, at least inside.

But some offenses that happened on the outside shed light on how daring and innovative people can be when big money is involved.

In all, Tampa police reported 26 arrests, 12 on felony charges. Eighteen people were ejected from the stadium for unruly behavior.

The number of ejections and arrests stemming from fan behavior was equivalent to a normal game, said police Maj. John Bennett, "maybe even a little less."

Most of those involved rowdiness. "We tried to adjust our tolerance and temperance based on type of crowd," he said. "You're paying a lot of money and we want to let fans be fans - until fan behavior affects other fans."

The bigger crimes were outside the stadium, he said.

Nine people were charged with hawking bogus tickets on Sunday, adding to the nine arrested last week. A typical Bucs game sees three or four people charged with selling counterfeit tickets, said Tampa police spokesman Jim Contento.

But the stakes were higher Sunday, with tickets going from $800 to almost $2,000.

"I know of a guy who got taken for $1,700," Contento said. "We're still looking for the bad guy."

Two Las Vegas men were charged with selling counterfeit credentials after police said the men tried to get into the game with fake credentials. Twelve sets of credentials were seized from them.

The arrest of those outside the stadium was more than a typical game, said Bennett, who supervised the entire law enforcement effort, from parking to traffic to security.

Officers said they also solved a case of stolen tickets. They said a Kentucky man took two tickets from the victim outside the stadium and ran off. He ditched the tickets, each with a face value of $800, in the median of Himes Avenue and they were recovered and returned. The suspect was arrested nearby and charged with grand theft.

Even stranger was the arrest of a Bradenton woman who was charged with drunken driving after, police say, she ran into a police horse south of the stadium just after kickoff. Ginger, the horse, and the mounted officer were not injured.

Nine patients were transported from the stadium to St. Joseph's Hospital for undisclosed medical problems.

Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760.

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