Teen Drinking and Parents

The police should have...

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Mark1031

Mark1031

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This sort of hit home as I am both a professor and parent of teens.

So rowdy that someone called the police, who came to the house and determined that some of the kids, ages 17 and 18, were, according to a police spokesperson, "displaying the signs of being under the influence of an alcoholic beverage."

The police then arrested dad and Stanford professor Bill Burnett, who along with wife Cynthia was hosting the party for their son, a high school senior. The charge against Burnett: 44 counts of contributing to a minor’s delinquency. Burnett spent a night in jail and faces a year’s sentence and/or a pricey fine.

The kicker of the story? Burnett and his wife insist they did not know there was alcohol in their house. In fact, they told TODAY, they tried to do everything possible to make sure there wouldn't be drinking at the party.

"We put really clear rules in place and we were patrolling the party," Bill Burnett told Matt Lauer. "My wife and I were both at the house. We were upstairs. The kids were downstairs in the basement. So we were there the whole time, I went through the party a couple times. I brought chocolate chip cookies. I was about to bring them brownies when the police came."
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http://moms.today.msnbc.msn.com/_ne...teen-drinking-even-if-they-dont-know-about-it

So assuming the facts as stated are correct should the dad have been arrested? Why not the mom, what's going on there? I am assuming that no one was obviously hammered or puking but that on close inspection you could tell some kids had been drinking.

So what should the parents have done differently if anything? Breathalyzer? Field sobriety test every 30 min?
 
Well I was taken in the pub by my Dad when I was 16. I even had a drink in the Police Station bar, but was told to be discrete.
 
Was the contributing to the delinguency related to the drinking or related to exposing them to his liberal Standford professorial ways?

More seriously, you have to prove intent to get a conviction and knowledge of the drinking is pretty relevant. I think both adults should have been arrested or neither of them should have. The Prof likely will have to do a plea bargain for probation and a fine though as going to trial is too risky.
 
If the parents did not supply, or in any way contribute to the presence of, alcohol, then they are not responsible for what the kids snuck past them.
 
... "displaying the signs of being under the influence of an alcoholic beverage."

So now according to police, if a teenager has been drinking elsewhere and shows up on your property, even without your consent, you are a criminal. Insane, that's the only way to describe it.
 
Cutlass said:
If the parents did not supply, or in any way contribute to the presence of, alcohol, then they are not responsible for what the kids snuck past them.
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This, and even if they did, who cares? It is far better to have teens drinking in a basement than in the woods, a gravel pit, or some other random place.
 
Maniacal said:
This, and even if they did, who cares? It is far better to have teens drinking in a basement than in the woods, a gravel pit, or some other random place.
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No its more fun in the police bar.

Correction: Actually I had a beer in two police stations when 16
 
What were these cops thinking?
I guess they wanted to leave one adult home to "supervise"...
 
The parents are responsible for ensuring there's no drinking going on, but there's a reasonable limit to how far that responsibility goes. Making it clear that there is to be no alcohol at the party, and occasionally monitoring it to ensure compliance, suffices.
 
Lower the damn drinking age...
 
Eliza Burnett's mother was recovering from back surgery and standing with a metal walker in a room in her house, Eliza Burnett wrote....

During the incident, Eliza Burnett said, her mother asked the officers why they were arresting her husband, who had not been read his Miranda rights, according to Eliza. In response, officers handcuffed her mother and "forced" her outside to stand in the night air without her walker, Eliza said...

In her email, Eliza Burnett describes her younger brother as in tears after witnessing the treatment of his mother and asking officers if he could bring her a chair or her walker. Officers told him to "shut up and get back in line," Burnett wrote. The teens were queued up for interviews in a line that extended outside...

Police did not witness drinking by the teens, nor did they conduct breathalyzer tests, she wrote...

Police told her mother that they "didn't believe" her responses to their questions and taunted her while she was in handcuffs, calling her "a disgusting parent," Eliza wrote...

Police refused Burnett's request that jackets and blankets be taken to the teens waiting in line outside to be interviewed. One of the officers allegedly replied: "No, let them freeze. We are teaching these kids a lesson." Eliza wrote...

Police detained a 22-year-old woman passing by the party during the incident. When the woman denied any involvement, police told her that they "didn't believe her," that she had "probably been coming to bring the kids drugs and alcohol," and she would be arrested on charges of "fleeing the scene" if she left, Eliza wrote...
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http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=23438

An all too common incident of cops gone wild. Bored suburban cops drunk with authority decide to go over the top. I’ve dealt with this before. 15 yr old daughter sitting in the car with some friends in front of the house talking and listening to music @ 11PM -noise complaint-curfew is 11PM for under 18. 2 cops come, 1 (fat old guy) gives a long obnoxious lecture about drugs alcohol (there were none!) and letting your daughter sit in a car with boys where she might get raped. Other young cop looks sheepish and embarrassed and apologized away from his partner. Of course it is legal to be in front of your house at any time/age in or out of car. They eventually leave but I had to stop my wife from getting arrested as she was starting to argue with the guy which just causes him to bear down more and prolong the whole thing. You could see he was just loving it.
 
Curfew, drinking age...
Why do Americans hate freedom ?
 
This is what happens in, what, every single white suburban neighborhood in the nation? Being a young teenager and sneaking alcohol past your parents, or going over to "that parent's house" where you knew you could get away with stuff is as American as apple pie. It's an issue for parents in a community to work out amongst themselves, or maybe even the local school, but not an issue for the police unless someone gets hurt, IMHO. Whoever called the cops rather than going to the house and asking them to be quiet needs to go on the neighborhood black list.
 
Blame the lawyers, not the Police. There was a time they would have let it go. But now that there are 1,000 ambulance chasing scumbags out their suing everyone, the Police are going to protect their own ass.
 
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