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The group of LPD officers and Nebraska State Patrol troopers had just finished a briefing in the  CVS Pharmacy parking lot.

Their location was strategic, Sands said, as the intersection and parking lot are "where most of the bad things happen" when the thousands of mostly well-intentioned onlookers converge on O Street annually to watch an informal parade of classic cars.

In recent years, crowds of more than 5,000 people have gathered in the pharmacy’s parking lot, Sands said, and some attendees have rushed into O Street to pour water on the tires of cars doing burnouts to create larger smoke clouds.

Others have thrown bottles at officers who perform traffic stops on the city’s primary east-west street.

The traffic light at the intersection, coupled with a pair of turning lanes, provides a stage large enough and a time slot long enough for cars to perform burnouts while spectators egg them on.

So before crowds of people could converge on the lot, officers took it over themselves and braced for the weekend, as hundreds of observers filled the lots of other private businesses up and down O Street as the sun set.

“You see all the people in the parking lots?” Sands said over the roar of revving engines, pointing across the street to people lining the lots of Walgreens, Runza and AT&T. “They’re all trespassing.”

As Sands explained the ordinances most attendees were violating, a team of officers mobilized to enforce the law.

* * *

Eight blocks to the east, Officer Luke Bonkiewicz was on foot, making his way from the Arby’s on 56th Street back toward LPD’s command post at CVS.

By 8:50 p.m., he had made his way past Cheddar’s, a real estate office, a mobile network operator and a Scooter’s Coffee shop using a polite, plainspoken approach as he asked onlookers to clear their cars from the businesses.

Bonkiewicz repeated phrases like “Sorry to bother you,” and he leaned on the word “folks.” Some groups asked him to cite the ordinance they were violating. Some groups thanked him, even as he requested they leave. One offered him a cookie they’d bought at Hy-Vee.

“Most people are very decent,” Bonkiewicz said. “Most people in Lincoln are decent folks, they’re just hard-working folks, who just want to enjoy it. There’s 10% of the people, who — maybe it’s drugs, alcohol, whatever it is — but most people are amazing.”

And most people complied. As he crossed 52nd Street and neared the parking lot of Barnes & Noble, Bonkiewicz had left largely empty lots in his wake.

It had taken him more than 20 minutes to walk from Arby’s to CVS, stopping in every lot except for Staples — the only business in the stretch, he said, that LPD hadn’t made contact with prior to Friday night. His walking tour seemed to have worked.

“Well,” Bonkiewicz said, drawing out the one-syllable word. “It’s temporarily effective.”

Within 20 minutes of his initial sweep, the same lots he cleared had filled again. Hy-Vee. Barnes & Noble. Scooters. As if Bonkiewicz had never been there.

At 52nd Street, where Fresh Thyme once operated, the onlookers who had asked Bonkiewicz to cite the ordinance requiring them to leave were now standing closer to the street, pouring water on the asphalt, encouraging drivers to perform burnouts. A red pickup truck obliged.

By 9:41 p.m., Bonkiewicz was nearing 56th Street again — this time on the other side of O Street, in front of Palm Beach Tan.

He planned to patrol until 2 a.m. Four hours to go.

* * *

Back at CVS, Sands and Sgt. Brad Junker met inside the police department’s command post that resembled a UPS truck. It was nearing 10 p.m., and the officers were reflecting on what they’d learned in the last two hours as they prepared for the next four.

“Wherever we go,” Junker said, “they just move.”

With their usual gathering spot now occupied by the city’s police department, the largest crowd had moved east. The former Fresh Thyme lot — where Bonkiewicz had already been — became the night’s flashpoint. Sands said the enforcement detail had expected that.

But a portion of the department’s plan had failed. Sands expected crowds to gather at CVS despite the police presence, giving officers a chance to educate onlookers and prevent dangerous behavior from breaking out altogether.

Instead, spectators had fled the intersection. But Sands said the night had still mostly been on par with what she expected in her first year quarterbacking the O Street operation.

In two hours, there hadn’t been any reported accidents or injuries. The crowd was smaller than Sands guessed it would be. The temperature was dropping. The sun had disappeared.

“The biggest difference now that the sun’s down is those neat, classic cars are going home for the night,” Junker said. “What we’re gonna be left with are the folks that want to turn this into a drag strip.”

A new batch of officers started their shifts. The O Street detail switched to its own radio frequency and was assigned its own dispatcher. Sands texted with the State Patrol helicopter pilot, who was on standby, waiting for orders from the sergeant.

Outside, the air smelled of burned rubber. The intersection where Sands had decided to set up shop was quieter than it’d been in previous years. Still, it was plagued by a cloud of smoke.