After viewing footage of the 2020 "fireworks war" in Carver Park, Fulton officials want the tradition to fizzle.
"It was shocking and disturbing and all those adjectives you can imagine," said Mayor Lowe Cannell. "The fire and police chief have been mulling over what can be done to keep it from happening again."
During two recent Fulton City Council meetings, two city residents brought concerns about the Independence Day "fireworks war" tradition that lights up Carver Park each year. Both residents live near Carver Park and said they fear for their property's safety and the safety of participants and bystanders. Charles Williams and Richard Skelton requested the City Council do something.
Viewing the video - a 15-minute "documentary" in which participants discuss their strategies, show off their war wounds and fire thousands of dollars' worth of fireworks at each other - brought the issue into focus for city officials. (The video is online at youtu.be/1m54E36fffU. It contains strong language and viewer discretion is advised.)
During the work session before Tuesday night's council meeting, Fulton Police Chief Steve Myers claimed officers who tried to intervene this year had burns on their uniforms.
"One sergeant had his mask caught on fire," Myers said. "They were shooting mortars at my guys, firing over the houses so we couldn't see who was shooting."
He said that one participant - not an officer - was burned so severely, he needed skin grafts.
According to multiple observers, the participants in recent years have included people from out of town - even as far away as Kansas City, Myers said.
"I don't think any of us realized the extent of what's going on," Cannell said.
Asked by City Council members about what could be done to stamp out the next war, Myers sketched two potential routes: one focused on prevention and another on intervention.
For prevention, Myers recommended banning setting off, selling or possessing fireworks within city limits.
"If we put a ban on fireworks, at least we might be able to lessen participation," said Fulton Fire Chief Kevin Coffelt.
Myers said banning fireworks worked well in Columbia, which also once was home to a fireworks war. Enacting a ban would also allow his officers to confiscate fireworks when they find them during traffic stops.
However, fireworks were banned within Fulton city limits until 2011, and the "firework wars" took place even then (though not on as large a scale, according to Coffelt).
"I hate to see Fulton punish the entire city for something that people from all over the state are coming to do in our town," said Ward 3 council member John Braun. "There's nothing stopping participants from bringing fireworks in from out of town."
Much of the behavior described by witnesses and captured on video is already illegal. Fulton's ordinances ban non-licensed individuals from firing off large display-grade fireworks; firing fireworks at structures, other people and toward/from vehicles; and firing fireworks in city parks.
"How will you enforce the current ordinance next Fourth of July?" asked Ward 2 council member Jeff Stone.
According to Myers, it would take a lot of equipment and manpower.
"The only way is to go in there with mortar rounds of gas," he said. "We'd need riot helmets and shields to block the fireworks coming at us. We'd need the whole department."
Myers said the Police Department considered using fire hoses to disperse participants this year but decided the optics would be bad - the majority of participants in the fireworks wars are Black, and Myers feared evoking memories of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.
"You made a wise decision not to use water," said Bob Washington, a council member for Ward 4, where Carver Park is located. "It's symbolic."
Stone suggested stationing officers throughout the area well before nightfall in hopes of preventing a large crowd from gathering. Council members also discussed cracking down on the sale of display fireworks - those containing more than 130Mg of explosives, such as mortars - to non-licensed consumers.
"I can attest (those sales are) not under the table, it's completely above the table," Stone said. "I've never heard of someone double-checking the vendors."
The discussion on fireworks continued briefly during the regular session of the meeting, with Cannell pointing out the city had plenty of time to settle on a course of action. The issue will return to the agenda in "another couple of months," he said.
"Citizens, we are listening," the mayor added. "We want to protect our neighborhoods. I love kids having fun, but we can't have what happened (this year) happen again."