Halloween on a Saturday -- and on the last day of daylight-saving time, for the year –- led to a lot of parties and an added police presence in Tacoma.
“We have extra patrols out there,” Tacoma Police Sgt John Correa said. “We have additional officers throughout the entire city helping provide presence and ensuring that everyone is safe this Halloween and can get home safe,” Correa said.
Police in Tacoma and other cities throughout western Washington had a couple of major concerns this Halloween.
First was the safety of young trick or treaters.
From 2010 to 2024, 45 children died while walking on Halloween nationwide -- that’s more than on any other day of the year, according to National Highway Transportation Safety Administration data analyzed by the finance consumer research website MoneyGeek.
In 2024, three children were struck and injured by cars while trick or treating in Tacoma. It’s one reason why Molly Price took her family to trick or treat in the Proctor neighborhood, where streets were blocked off in an area where businesses and other groups handed out candy.
“Yeah, this is a great place to come, especially for younger kids, because there are so many streets blocked off, and they can kind of roam around and still get to experience Halloween in a really safe way,” Price said.
In another neighborhood, Aaron (who declined to give his last name) said he was being vigilant, as he walked with three young trick-or-treaters.
“Checking the streets, crosswalks, intersections -- yeah it’s all important,” Aaron said.
Aaron also said he was keeping an eye out for impaired drivers.
The same MoneyGeek analysis of roughly 15 years showed 43% of deadly crashes on Halloween involved drunk drivers, and 57.6% when Halloween fell on a Saturday.
“I’m very concerned,” Logahn Symes, who was heading out to a party in Tacoma Saturday night, said. “I do not mess with drunk driving.”
Symes said her mother, an Uber driver, was driving her and others around Saturday night.
“I see what happens to people, the repercussions [drunk driving] has,” Symes said. “And not only could you hurt yourself, but you could really hurt someone else. That’s not cool.”
©2026 Cox Media Group
