For the second year in a row, arrests dropped during the first weekend of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, with police announcing Wednesday that 99 people were arrested during the fest's opening weekend.
Of the 99 people taken into custody -- out of more than 120,000 festival attendees -- roughly 90% were arrested for drug- or alcohol-related reasons, according to Indio police. Six people were arrested for false identification and three for possession of drugs for sale. Three of the arrests were categorized as "other."
The number of arrests was down 7 percent from last year, when 106 arrests were made during the first weekend of Coachella. In 2017, 125 people were arrested during the same weekend.
The drops coincide with recent law-enforcement changes at the festival, including the use of drones to monitor crowds and traffic conditions.
Indio police also reported that local traffic congestion was relatively minimal last Thursday, when thousands of campers and other festival-goers began arriving.
