Top 5 Ways to Get Arrested While Tailgating

Seventy-two people were arrested for football tailgating in what could have been one of the final matchups in the historic rivalry between Michigan and Notre Dame.

Indiana State Police arrested the 72 people and charged them with almost 100 criminal counts. This followed the arrest of 110 people at the not-so-historic Ball State/Indiana University matchup the previous week also for tailgating-related incidents. As you can expect, most of the arrests related to alcohol.

With tailgating as popular as the game itself in many areas, we came up with our top 5 list of ways to get arrested during tailgating.

1. Assault and Battery. Every Monday, you can scour YouTube for NFL fan fights caught on cellphone cameras. You'll see Redskins fans fighting Redskins fans, Cowboys fans fighting anyone, and Eagles fans behaving like how fans from Philadelphia are expected to behave. Without fail, at the end of each clip, you'll hear someone in the background scream, "here come the cops!"


2. Public Intoxication. Even if it is legal to drink in the parking lot, you have to be careful not to take the alcohol outside of the private lot or take a drunken stroll to the nearest bar. There's typically an army of police at a game, and you're sure to get cited if you're staggering along the sidewalk.


3. Hit-and-Run. There are no traffic signals or pedestrian walk signs inside a stadium parking lot. And even if there were, no one would pay attention. Drive cautiously or risk striking drunk pedestrians.


4. Public Urination. When you're drunk, there may be no more attractive "toilet" than a space between two cars. Just look both ways before whipping it out, or you could get busted for public urination and public indecency.


5. DUI. Fans drink inside and outside the stadium. So make sure you have a designated driver when going home. In the alternative, have a local DUI attorney on your speed dial.

Football tailgating can be a great time. All sorts of animals are being roasted. Your fellow fans are reveling. And beer is flowing. Just be careful to drink in moderation and not start any fights.

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