Where the Wilding Things Are

Early on the morning of July 18, a police helicopter flew in noisy circles over LoDo, while a SWAT officer armed with an assault rifle ordered two men sitting on a window ledge outside Bash to stand up and move. "If you guys haven't got those phone numbers by now, you're not going to get 'em," the cop said.

"I got three in my pocket already," one of them replied.

"Well, go call 'em them. But do it from your car. We need to clear these streets."

Across the road, a group of rappers hawking a local hip-hop compilation CD titled Pimpmatic mocked the SWAT guy's automatic rifle -- from a safe distance. "I hope that damn thing's not loaded," said one, who identified himself as MC Chill. "What the fuck does he need to be carrying that around all these clubs for? This isn't Iraq. The police are trippin', man."

But the show of force seems to be working. Last weekend's Let Outs were the calmest in recent months. Only five arrests were made Friday night and eight on Saturday, a marked decrease from weeks past. There were fewer fights, and fewer people argued with police about breaking up the Let Out street party.

But the city can't afford this show of force much longer. "We're going to have to scale back," Commander Dilley says. "We're pulling officers from other districts, and over time, that does a disservice to those districts."

Last week, a group of LoDo club owners, managers and entertainment directors met with police officials at District Six headquarters. Beyond sheer force, crowd-control strategies discussed at the meeting included bagging the meters on Market and Blake, bringing back the horse patrols, and installing airport runway lights, timed to ignite at Let Out, that would bathe the departing masses in a harsh white glare.

"We're thinking about going for the cockroach effect," Bertinelli says.