Things got a little out of control at the end of “Hog Wild Days” in Hiawatha last (Sunday) night. After the closing event — a fireworks show that started at 10 o’clock in a city park — as many as two-hundred teenagers gathered to watch fireworks of a different sort.
Hiawatha Police Chief Richard Pierce says a fight broke out, and police haven’t been able to figure out why. “One minute there’s a crowd of teenagers and the next second, there’s a fight,” the police chief says. “There was a large gathering of people then all of a sudden the fight broke out. The officers moved in, arrested three and everybody took off then. The entertainment was over, I guess.”
Three young men — two 18-year-olds and a 16-year-old — were taken into custody and charged with disorderly conduct. “We don’t know what caused it, whether it was an exchange of words or what. It was just one of those things when everything’s fine and then — bingo — there it is,” Pierce says. “It’s unfortunate when you have a family…type festival and you have something like this, it kind of ruins it.”
This was the 23rd annual Hog Wild Days in Hiawatha, which is just northeast of Cedar Rapids. There was a parade, a pie eating contest and bingo as well as the crowning of the Junior Mister and Miss Hiawatha.