This week, the police around UW-Eau Claire dealt with a stuck elevator, a speedster and a few other odd calls.

The first of these began on the evening of Wednesday, Feb. 11. An officer heard a call reporting a woman screaming in the middle of the intersection of Clairemont Avenue and University Drive.

Because the officer was in the area, they went to the scene to assist. However, after searching the area, they found nothing out of the ordinary and left.

The following day, an officer was on a stationary radar patrol on Summit Avenue when a vehicle drove down Water Street at around 10:33 a.m., which the officer believed was going over the speed limit. 

Their radar caught it at 42 mph, leading the officer to turn on their lights. The officer identified the stopped vehicle as a 2016 Chevrolet and introduced themself to the occupant. 

The driver told the officer they had been unaware of the speed zone. The officer conducted record checks and then issued a citation to the driver for driving 16-19 mph over the speed limit. 

The next day, at 10:39 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 13, an officer was dispatched to Marilyn Karlgaard Tower and was informed that three students were stuck in an elevator on the second floor. 

Once the officer reached the second floor, they knocked on the elevator door to ask if any students needed medical assistance. 

The students said they did not need medical assistance and  informed the officer that they were freaked out. 

The officer then told them to remain calm but informed them he would need to leave them to enter the elevator room. 

He then went to the elevator room to shut off the power before returning to open the door with the elevator door key. 

However, the officer realized they could not open the door as the elevator was stuck between the first and second floors. The officer informed the students of this and told them they would get more help. 

It was then that the officer requested assistance from a second officer, who called a repair service for emergency elevator repairs. 

While they waited, the first officer called for the Eau Claire Fire Department (ECFD) as well, who asked when the technician would arrive, but the officer told them they were not given an arrival time.

While waiting for ECFD to arrive, the officer was informed by the repair service that the technician wouldn’t arrive for another hour and twenty minutes. 

Once the fire department arrived, they used a ladder from the second floor through the gap in the elevator door to evacuate the three trapped students. 

The officer asked again if they were sure they did not need medical assistance, and the students once again assured the officer they did not. Later in the evening, the technician arrived and repaired the elevator.

The final report from this week does not have an official date, but it involves an officer observing a blue sedan fail to stop at a stop sign at an intersection on University Drive. 

The officer conducted a traffic stop and issued a citation after the driver could not give a reason for failing to acknowledge the sign.

These were all the incidents reported near the UW-Eau Claire campus that the Eau Claire police responded to.

Curtin can be reached at [email protected].