Over-policing plus justified fear of impersonators

[EEllis]

I'll repeat. Per the article when someone hit them with police lights they stopped. So it actually worked.

So moral of the story-swarming teenage girls because they might have a six pack is bad. Pulling up with marked patrol car and flashing lights better.

Ok and you think kids have never panicked and ran when hit with lights? Died in doing so? But because these particular girls were panicked by one approach and not lights and sirens, which have been documented many times to make kids panic, it is obvious which tactic is automatically better and should guide ABC in all their approaches to minors? Ok I'm done

[Cedar Park Dad]

I'll repeat. Per the article when someone hit them with police lights they stopped. So it actually worked.

So moral of the story-swarming teenage girls because they might have a six pack is bad. Pulling up with marked patrol car and flashing lights better.

Ok and you think kids have never panicked and ran when hit with lights? Died in doing so? But because these particular girls were panicked by one approach and not lights and sirens, which have been documented many times to make kids panic, it is obvious which tactic is automatically better and should guide ABC in all their approaches to minors? Ok I'm done

Considering this is the actual scenario I'd say prudent use of marked vehicle at the get go would have worked.
Not bothering would have worked so much better. As noted seven cops, swarming college girls (that sounds bad right there) for what? At most a ticket? Were they waiting for the kids to get into the vehicle so they could seize and sell the vehicle? What exactly is the point?

[E.Marquez]

Has anyone ever been arrested for that? (not the shop owners - the teenagers) who weren't being a nuisance in the first place?

Not that I have heard of....if the LEO has a burr you know where, he will sometimes write a ticket, but usually not. Usually it is just "give me that....now get out of here and don't do that again." I have really only ever seen tickets issued to places that serve alcohol to minors, usually the minor is not ticketed.

I think it depends a lot on the local police department, DA/ADA, mayor, govener and perhaps recent events like minors involved in an alcohol related injury or death.

We see an almost zero tolerance in my part of texas around ft hood for soldiers and civilians regarding MIP.
Was the same on campus when I was at Oregon state, in the town surrounding campus if called to a house, someone was getting cited providing alcohol to minor or MIP, but most others would be just given a warning

[Cedar Park Dad]

But cited right? Thats not exactly Bonnie and Clyde requiring a full team.

[EEllis]

And you continue to belittle those with a differing opinion. I think your better then that.. so please just share your opinion.

I wazsn't trying to belittle anyone, heck I don't know what happened out there, but the arguments being made made to explain how wrong this event was are.........it's hard to come up with an accurate discription. Illogical at least, without any real foundation, and sometimes going into the absurd.

I seems you continue to ignore the rest of the reported story. Cherry picking just a small part to make misleading responses to.
Sorry, no way to have a decent conversation like this. Again I get the impression your better then that

Again, still.. It was not ONE LONE female plains cloths look maybe like an officer involved, I know you know this as you can read.. so why continue to ignore that in your responses?

It was a group of adult males and one female in plain cloths approaching two young females at night.
It would appear they were doing nothing illegal (no charges remain, and nothing even attempted from the initial PC for the encounter)

This entire event was over the WRONG guess by ABC officers that the girls had beer....and the officers made a bad choice to attempt a stop at night, in plain clothes of two young girls who have rightfully been taught to be suspicious of cop impersonators, and even women working as part of a gang rape, murder, robbery team.

All of this over a non violent possible crime of minor in possession

Well I don't want to debate every little comment and I almost would have too. Like that IT WAS 7 AGENTS not one lone female. Never said it was one lone female rather that the female initially approached by herself according to the Huff post statement. Now you have taken that I mean the other agents were nowhere in site. I have no idea exactly how close they were, I assume earshot at the least but you insist on framing it as if the female officer couldn't be but inches in front of a charging mass of agents. How does anyone know. All the statements allow for massive variations and still be technically true and this without the distortion that adrenalin has on a persons memory. Just because they remember it one way doesn't mean it happened like that. That goes for the agents also tho they are better trained to deal with that issue and likely have dealt with that factor before. It is incomprehensible that ABC officer doing their job should refrain from making contact with college kids who appear to have purchased beer after dark. That is what you want but it isn't policy and hopefully ever will be. These girls were not taught right because in this uation would be absurd to expect impersonators unless one of the girls was at risk for a K&R. Large groups of impersonators do not pull abductions in parking lots on college girls. And they do not do so with women. People rightfully should be taught to be prepared for things that actually happen not made to fear any and everything under the sun because "It could happen".

[VMI77]

It was in VA so those girls could have been legally armed (open carry legal for 18+). Had then been armed I think it would have gone down much much worse. Poor things.

You don't understand....they were about to get away with some beer. They had to be stopped. If you have to kill a few college girls to stop them from maybe possibly having some beer...well, you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs. LE was wrong, had no PC, and it turns out it was just water....so what.....doesn't matter.....they thought it could maybe might have been beer, and they were following policy....so, a couple college girls are killed....the next couple of college girls will think twice before running away with a bunch of water and cookie dough.

[talltex]

Has anyone ever been arrested for that? (not the shop owners - the teenagers) who weren't being a nuisance in the first place?

Not that I have heard of....if the LEO has a burr you know where, he will sometimes write a ticket, but usually not. Usually it is just "give me that....now get out of here and don't do that again." I have really only ever seen tickets issued to places that serve alcohol to minors, usually the minor is not ticketed.

Sadly, now days they do arrest them quite often for minor infractions....not talking about kids out driving around drunk, but just having some beer in their possession...and it can be a permanent record if they are 18 or older. Since the law was changed 1/1/84, all alcohol related offenses stay on the arrest record FOREVER, even if probation is granted and completed successfully. I know people get tired of hearing how it was "in the day", but like some others here I had a number of occasions to interact with LEO's growing up in a small rural town. They knew a lot of us would have some beer in the truck on Saturday night, but as long as we didn't do anything to warrant them stopping us, they let it go. Once, about a dozen of us were hanging out in the bank parking lot about 11:00pm, listening to music, shooting the bull and a couple of guys were sipping a beer. The Sheriff, who knew all of us by name, pulled in and got out, and walked up and asked how we were all doing...checking us out of course...once satisfied nobody was drunk, he politely said "Boys...if ya'll want to drink a cold one and tell each other lies...then get on out of town and go down to the river, because if somebody calls and complains I'll have to do something about it." On other occasions, if we were driving around, we got stopped and they took our beer and told us to be at the jail at 8:00am with our Dads to pick up our beer...knowing that was going to have more effect on us than paying a $40 fine. It worked...and we all grew up with respect and trust for them because they didn't view their job as "punishing" us for our indiscretions, but rather "taking care" of us. I wish that was still the case.

[philip964]

If I remember correctly from the stories my son told from college, MIP was done on campus by students hired just for that purpose. They were unarmed and wearing street clothes as they were just students. They would show up unannounced at a frat or sorority parties and start checking id's.

The goal of every chapter however, was to get booze to pledges as that was the mark of a good chapter.

[rbwhatever1]

Interesting comments and a lot of deserved emotion. 6 or 7 adult ABC agents on a stake out of a supermarket watching for underage citizens buying beer. Not a very good stake out if you ask me. I thought the cashiers were all supposed to ID the criminal citizens who buy beer, and since this girl wasnt running out of the supermarket with a bag boy chasing her, one would think she paid for the merchandise, which would have required an ID check by the cashier, and at least one of the 6 or 7 adult ABC agents should be able to deduce that no crime had been commited. Unless everyone is guilty until proven innocent. Scratch that ID check comment since you dont need one for ice cream, cookie dough or water. Not yet anyway. So, the ABC guys and gal were pumped up and ready to make two arrests and shut down an interstate alcohol smuggling gang reminescent of the prohibition era. The cashier that made the sale and the customer who bought the water. I meant beer. Oh, thats right, it was water. Wonder if those agents had tommy guns... This whole turning citizens into criminals at the drop of a pin gets confusing and hard to follow, especially when no crime has taken place and one needs to save face. So what was the probable cause? Short skirt? Tight jeans? Flip flops? Bouncy step? She looked 20? Walking from a supermarket to a car with ice cream, cookie dough and water? I meant beer. The more i think about this the more absurd it gets.
7 pairs of eyes failed to identify a 12 pack of water on a stake out. Were they hiding in the outskirts of the parking lot and came out of darkness? Were they close to the lit up entrance where they could see a 12 pack of water? Somebody needs to lose a job over this one and some agents need to be retrained on stake outs and the Constitution of the United States.

[EEllis]

minor bit of info. It won't change anyone's mind that has it already made up but the Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Chapman who dropped the charges just started his re=election campaign 2 days before the arrest.

[MasterOfNone]

I'm still confused about the reason for this contact. The officers observed girls leaving the store with something. The agents did not identify the product as alcoholic beverages, but something that could have been either alcohol or something completely legal. I don't see where they had any reason to believe that it was alcohol except that the agents were expecting it to be.

7 pairs of eyes failed to identify anything illegal

but moved in anyway. (tweaked the previous post).

[EEllis]

I'm still confused about the reason for this contact. The officers observed girls leaving the store with something. The agents did not identify the product as alcoholic beverages, but something that could have been either alcohol or something completely legal. I don't see where they had any reason to believe that it was alcohol except that the agents were expecting it to be.

7 pairs of eyes failed to identify anything illegal

but moved in anyway. (tweaked the previous post).

These were ABC agents. Most likely if they were not with licensing enforcement in a college town their big thing would be catching minors with booze. I know people think that is a horrible use of resources but at least be honest about it that agenda is politically motivated and has been pushed big time by groups like MADD and many others. Reminiscing about how it used to be is neither particularly revealing or relevant. So you have a group of State Booze cops whose main job is to catch minors with booze see what they believed was a minor carrying what appeared to be a 12 pack of beer. That is and has long been RS for a stop by law enforcement. More so in this case because this would be on of the main jobs for the agents so it should be well within their expertise.

[MasterOfNone]

...see what they believed was a minor carrying what appeared to be a 12 pack of beer.

This is the problem I am having. What made them "believe it was beer? They obviously did not positively identify it, so what made them believe it was beer instead of water or soda? I suspect it was a preformed bias toward believing it.
This just sounds a lot like the citizen having to prove innocence.

[E.Marquez]

The item in question that caused ABC agents to believe that had cornered a criminal.

[EEllis]

...see what they believed was a minor carrying what appeared to be a 12 pack of beer.

This is the problem I am having. What made them "believe it was beer? They obviously did not positively identify it, so what made them believe it was beer instead of water or soda? I suspect it was a preformed bias toward believing it.
This just sounds a lot like the citizen having to prove innocence.

they don't have to positively identify it as beer it just has to be reasonable to them that it is. We, the courts, don't require law enforcement to be positive before allowing them it investigate or initiate a stop. There been no hint, except from people who in absolutely no position to know, that there was anything wrong with the RS for this stop.

Just for those who don't know this particular brand of water is canned not bottled and does not use the primarily single color packaging that soda uses. While soda and beer are not the only items that come in 12 pack cans these would certainly not cause me to instinctively think water.