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68 comments to "Cops Bust a (Root) Beer Kegger Party"

Tim
March 30th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
They don’t always drink alcohol, but they still manage to get in trouble…
Justin
March 30th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
HAHAHA! This is great!
Steohawk
March 30th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Did the cops have any evidence of a crime being committed? If not, then they didn’t have any legal right, let alone any MORAL right, to force those kids to take breath tests.
Derrik
March 30th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
sweet. thats EXACTLY what i would do in a situation like that. actually, wait, that is me, im the kid. jk
andrew
March 30th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Steohawk: all the signals were there for a regular kegger, I’d say the keg was a good enough reason. it’s like swerving all over the road and complaining if you have to take a breath test.

That being said, nice job kids! reminds me a heck of a lot of the cakeparty: http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/09/facebook-prank-on-po.html and NYT article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/08/education/edlife/facebooks.html?_r=1 &oref=slogin
where a bunch of people in dorms ran ads for their “beer party” on facebook to show that the campus police were using it to track parties. The police show up and there’s a lot of cake, all with “beer” written in icing on the tops. There was even cake pong and a cake stand.
Caitlin
March 31st, 2008 at 12:07 am
That kid is awesome. I sent him a message on Faceook to tell him so also, but I’m sure he’s gotten a few thousand just like it already.
Thespian24601
March 31st, 2008 at 12:51 am
That is so awesome, and it makes me happy that someone showed police that not every party (or every teenager) is all about alcohol.
jason
March 31st, 2008 at 8:37 am
I had this idea for a long time, but never had the resources (or social popularity) to pull it off. Kudos to these creative people for breaking down cliche beliefs.
rizwan
March 31st, 2008 at 9:50 am
the point made was not more valuable than the police time wasted. you can’t fake a crime, and laugh at the cops for doing their job. especially if the kids called in the party themselves.
Aea
March 31st, 2008 at 10:05 am
Sadly, if this was Boston I would expect the kid to be charged for falsifying a crime scene, and wasting all that valuable police time…
ind3p3nd3nt
March 31st, 2008 at 12:48 pm
@rizwan

The police wasted the time themselves. Nobody faked a crime at all - it was a demonstration of how the police stereotype and make false assumptions about people. Not all kegs are filled with alcohol, and to assume that because MOST are, that the one that these kids have definitely is, is folly. The article doesn’t even say they called it in, just that they held a keg party where the keg had rootbeer in it. Sounds like a damned good idea to me.
zips
March 31st, 2008 at 12:49 pm
There was no falsification since a “keg” can be filled with anything from soda to sand. Unless they touted “come to our underage drinking party where we will have alcohol and drugs” there is no reason for the swoop-down. Detectives should not be relying on Facebook or Myspace as a accurate “source” so the only one that wasted the time and money of the police force were the corner-cutting detectives.
Jonathan
March 31st, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Well, the committed no crime. There’s nothing illegal, or immoral, about having a party. They used root beer, sure, but the cops just bought into the teens-all-drink stereotype (for good reason, or course), so they are the ones at fault.
smurf
March 31st, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Haha! That’s just priceless =]
Patrick Draper
March 31st, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Rizwan, drinking root beer is faking a crime? What about the cops faking the law enforcement? Or the school busting kids with red cups that is faking fairness and justice?
Kyle
March 31st, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Andrew: That BoingBoing link is about me! Weird to see it popping up from time to time around the internet… especially on sites that I read.

I’ve got more of an explanation of the event on my blog if anyone is interested: http://www.legatissimo.info/node/204
Ru$$
March 31st, 2008 at 1:08 pm
This same thing happened at USC this past Fall when our DPS (campus police) busted Alpha Gamma Omega, a Christ centered, non drinking, fraternity for throwing a Root Beer Float Kegger. The sad part…. the event was to raise money for a local soup kitchen and it got broken up so early that no money was raised.

This story above is another reason why Facebook needs to start protecting its users by reestablishing, limiting, and securing its NETWORKS instead of trying to cash in and trying to catch Myspace….You shouldn’t be allowed to look at students pages unless your a student….
CHARLIE3232
March 31st, 2008 at 1:12 pm
18 YEAR OLDS ARE OLD ENOUGH TO FIGHT AND DIE FOR THIS COUNTRY BUT ARE NOT OLD ENOUGH TO HAVE A BEER……
SOMETHING SHOULD BE DONE TO CHANGE THIS….MAYBE JUST PROOF THAT THEY ARE IN THE MILITARY …THIS MIGHT ENCOURGE SOME TO JOIN THE SERVICE…
crownroyal77
March 31st, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Thank god cocaine doesn’t come up on breathlizer tests!
Jajayjay
March 31st, 2008 at 1:19 pm
society, cops, teachers, principals, and all other dumb rule abiding, tush-sitting, lazy, rationalizing, reality ignoring jerks: OWNED!
Danbanna
March 31st, 2008 at 1:27 pm
The only “crime” they may have been committing would have been parking violations with cars lining the streets. However it depends on the laws in place for parking on the street. If I were the kid I would be putting a law suit at the school for banning him from sports for drinking out of a red cup. They have no right to suspend someone from sports because of the color of his beverage container
JHoya
March 31st, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Right on, Danbanna:

Let us all hope for a day when we will not be judged by the color of our beverage containers, but by the contents of the container.

Screw the cops.
Tom
March 31st, 2008 at 1:44 pm
So…where would one go about procuring a keg full of root beer? I have a kegerator, and I was thinking a non-alcoholic beverage would be a nice change of pace.
nate
March 31st, 2008 at 2:03 pm
well here’s a scenario. you got in trouble and needed help. you saw a police officer and asked for help. but the police said, “just because I’m wearing the police uniform, it doesn’t mean that I’m a police officer”
Andy Matthews
March 31st, 2008 at 2:06 pm
The question I have is “was the previous party just Root Beer?” It’s all well and good to play a joke on the cops with a keg of Root Beer, but they’re just thumbing their noses at the police if the previous party featured real beer instead of root beer.
Dwall
March 31st, 2008 at 2:12 pm
one time a teacher in highschool accused me of smoking cigarettes and I deffinatly wasnt, and it pissed me off, so i told her i was smoking weed so that they would call the cops and wast money on a drug test for me and when i passed, i laughed bigtime hard at the dumbass teachers face for accusing me of something that she had zero proof of.
Near
March 31st, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Justice.
asdfg
March 31st, 2008 at 2:28 pm
These kids are incredibly stupid.
Stop trying to prove something, while wasting police officer’s time…
And half of the people commenting on this are probably just as stupid, praising these kids for “sticking to the man”. yeah, man, you’ve gotta hate cops for stopping children (that’s what you are) from drinking alcohol, or doing drugs, etc. yeah, “po po’s” are real dicks… how dare they try to uphold the law.
idiots. learn some respect
(oh, and don’t try telling me to learn respect for teens; you have to earn respect, as police officers do every-time they go to work.)
Drew Woolley
March 31st, 2008 at 2:33 pm
In response to Andy Matthews.

Doesn’t matter if the previous party held beer in it or not, the school punished them using red cups as their only evidence. If something like that were to be presented in court as evidence it would be laughed out of the courtroom.

The point of the demonstration was to show that punishing people based on stereotypes is wrong. Quite frankly, the kids should threaten legal action if they’re not allowed back on to their sports teams. I’ve worked for a school district before, not everyone is stupid and they almost always fold to legal pressure because they know that most of the shit they do in regards to punishment of students has no legal backing.
b
March 31st, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Authority can suck a nut.
krAzykrAkr01
March 31st, 2008 at 3:02 pm
**crownroyal77-Thank god cocaine doesn’t come up on breathlizer tests!**

LOL Among other things. LMAO
rizwan
March 31st, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Of course not all kegs are filled with beer and not all high school kids who party drink beer and the intent of this was obviously to make that point but if most underage drinking is done under those circumstances than they would qualify as indicators of a crime and thus demand the police attention they received. From what I could tell the kids were not being belligerent but neither were the police. The one officer in particular is seen laughing at the antics of the kids who are taking the breathalyzer test. The number of police who showed up is appropriate if it were actually a party where teens were being served alcohol. If all crimes were responded to only after certainty than resulting large frequency of overlooked crimes would be harmful to society as a whole. The entire event seemed to be orchestrated to illicit a particular inevitable response, which it did. BIG WHOOP
Jeff O
March 31st, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Kegs are almost always filled with beer, so the argument ‘oh, it can be filled with soda!’ is pretty nonsensical. I have never seen a keg filled with soda before - has anyone else? you can also put water in a car gastank, so who cares?
but the cop should have stopped the breathalysers after realizing whats going on. What a doofus. and a waste of money.
there are all these stupid laws that cops can pull out of nowhere to get you in trouble. I dont think the school should suspend anyone for things outside of school though. Schools have their own law system, they can do whatever they want, you know?
Angry Citizen
March 31st, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Fight the power!
Louise
March 31st, 2008 at 3:54 pm
I loved this story because I’ve had root beer kegs at my parties. You can order them at a Stewart’s Root Beer Stand. It’s such a wonderful summer drink, and the keg makes it memorable.
alicia
March 31st, 2008 at 4:00 pm
so, i read this and i have a somewhat similar story… a few years ago an old friend of mine threw a party at her apt for st. patty’s day… my boyfriend at the time asked if i wanted to go, i wasnt feeling well but i went.. we got there and were talking to a few friends, some had alcohol (they were the ones actually 21 +) and my one guy friend actually had a rootbeer can in his hand… someone called for a “parking violation” and when the cops came by they actually kicked in the door and told everyone to get out… they gave my guy friend with the rootbeer can in hand an underage, and didn’t even breathalize anyone who was there just handed out underages to everyone… i got a lawyer involved and when we had our court date the cops couldn’t even identify who was outside or inside of the apt.. they had no justified reason for busting in like they did, and they actually gave underages to ppl who were 21 + … shows how stupid cops can be… and the funny thing was when we were walking out the judge told us to thank them for doing their job, so we had to and right after the one leaned over to the other and said “don’t worry, they’ll all be 21 soon, we’ll hit them with DUI’s” … what assholes.
Adam K
March 31st, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Umm, actually yes I have seen kegs with something other then beer.. my job actually serves root beer out of kegs.. gg kk thnx maybe next time.
TN
March 31st, 2008 at 4:04 pm
The best part about this video is when someone says “thats what she said” in response to “you blew that like a pro” around 3:57
Chris
March 31st, 2008 at 4:17 pm
What’s up with the Blink182 karaoke at the end?
Stolia
March 31st, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Wow, some people sure have a problem with this. The bottom line is these kids made a point (although I doubt it will get their friends out of trouble) and had a memorable, fun evening.

I think the cop was right to breathalize, simply because even if ONE kid was schmammered, drove home, and got into an accident - the cop would get the blame for not testing him. At least that would have been his reasoning. I mean, cops sure are dicks but it’s not like they operate in a vacuum.
Scooter
March 31st, 2008 at 4:38 pm
I loved this story, I think more kids should throw parties with rootbeer. the fact is the Schools shouldn’t have a ruling over an activity that happened while the student was outside of the school properties. That’s what the protest was over. The waisting of tax-payer money that the cop showed buy breathalizing every single kid at the party is what the City’s residents should look into. Just pick out a random sample and brethalize them, not the whole house full.
I would have loved to walk around my college (the town had an open container law) with a bottle of O-douls. If you are 21 and walking home from a bar you are the responcible one and shouldn’t get hassled.
Jesse
March 31st, 2008 at 4:52 pm
I’d say what they did wasn’t so much to harass the police as to protest the lack of evidence that got the other kids kicked off their teams. I think it was pretty creative, though if it kept police from doing something more productive, I’d say it wasn’t worth it. But it’s likely that there wasn’t anything at that exact moment that those police would actually have been accomplishing if they weren’t there.
Either way, I want root beer.
davetheoneandonly
March 31st, 2008 at 5:11 pm
A thing of beauty!! Kudos to the young men and women who did this!
At least the cop was laughing along and not being a dick… the cops in my little town would never have been that good natured… of course we were “bad hippies”….
Steve
March 31st, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Kids being kids I would say. Nothing more nothing less.
ted
March 31st, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Lame.
shecky
March 31st, 2008 at 5:37 pm
If it saves just one child from driving drunk, it’s all justified.

Way to think about the children, cops!
matt
March 31st, 2008 at 8:32 pm
good for these guys, im glad they took a stand and tried to prove a point. And good for the cops too, maybe they learned something. Its good that they breathalyzed all the kids too, because they were just doing their jobs. It seems to me that more and more recently cops have begun to step over their boundaries. They are given their authority by the people which they seem to forget sometimes. Maybe they should start worrying about the real criminals. And as for schools using facebook and myspace to catch students, i dont understand it. What happened to innocent until proven guilty? Just cuz a kid is drinking out of a cup doesnt prove anything. the cup is one of the greatest inventions of all time and is now being portrayed in a bad light. i just think the school officials looking on facebook are pervs who just happen to find suspect material. in the words of RATM, fuck the police.
na
March 31st, 2008 at 8:43 pm
How can you possibly say they wasted the cops’ time? that doesn’t even make sense if you are the slightest bit reasonable.

The cops were doing their job, if something more important than making life difficult for a bunch of young people came up, they would have to leave anyways to take care of it. (like a hostage situation in the donut shop)
ben
March 31st, 2008 at 9:34 pm
pick out a random sample, yes, thats how we should practice law enforcement, for sure. As for facebook, you have every right to control what goes on there, and its public if you don’t go in and change the preferences yourself. No, it is in no way fair to assume that red cups always contain alcohol, and I admire the point these kids made. But as for blaming facebook? Let me ask: who created the pages? Who posts the pictures? Who has the ability to control everything and anything that is associated with your name? Thats right, all of you, the users. So any of you blaming the system, blaming facebook, blaming “the man” or the cops, how about you step back and realize that you all control everything you do, and that includes facebook.

The cops also did have a right to come into the house, especially if it was called in. If, from the oustide of the house, the cops could plainly see any evidence of what looked like underage drinking inside the house, they have the right by law and court precedent to enter the house, so long as they do not search anything that is beyond plain view. Breathalyzing falls under this as well. Its not a stereotype that led them to search the house. Police have the right to conduct a search in situations where the crime/evidence could be gone by the time a warrant is obtained, such as searching a car, when given probable cause. In the case of underage drinking, seeing a keg inside a house full of underage people is enough probable cause to at least enter the house and ensure that no crime was taking place, or so i would assume.
BlackCow
March 31st, 2008 at 10:07 pm
This made my day, way to own the police!
Tim
March 31st, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Rofl, this would be something I would do, except I would make them take me down to the station and give me a blood test just to be a douche… honestly after the first 20 or so kids didn’t they figure out they weren’t going to find shit?
Alx
March 31st, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Its nice to see kids not doing drugs or getting shit-faced like i used to…But i had never found the right people to be around….
bob
March 31st, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Why are the cops in your house in the first place? Couldn’t you just not allow them to enter?
MikeTwo
April 1st, 2008 at 12:41 am
The cop was laughing along with the kids — I’m sure he was glad he didn’t have to actually bust anyone for underage drinking. Cops are people too, ya know? Nevertheless, he’s got a job to do. If someone called then he’s got to breathalize everyone, even if it’s obvious after the first 5 that it’s just root beer.

Kudos to the kids for proving a point as well. The school should not take the color of a cup as evidence of what’s inside. And it doesn’t look like they were harassing the cop too much either. They cheered on their friends and were being a little immature, but duh, they’re teens. That’s what teens do.

False positives are not wasted resources, especially if they are so rare that they make the news. The cops checking out a party and being wrong about underage drinking is rare enough that this story got legs. And while hindsight is 20/20, expecting perfection from the onset is just silly.

All in all, a good story. I hope the school got the message.
Dave Greiman
April 1st, 2008 at 12:50 am
Too funny.
Thomas
April 1st, 2008 at 1:49 am
Bob, if you don’t allow them in, you can’t make a point of having no alcohol. Kinda kills the point.
JamesM
April 1st, 2008 at 2:38 am
“shecky
March 31st, 2008 at 5:37 pm

If it saves just one child from driving drunk, it’s all justified.

Way to think about the children, cops!”

The same exact logic was behind the Patriot Act. If you have nothing to hide, then you shouldn’t complain when they take away your right to privacy, right?

These kids proved a point and they proved it well. The police that arrived had no probable cause and pretty much wasted their times. One thing I’ve always remembered hearing was that they had to make sure they SMELLED alcohol before administering a breathlyzer test. Not one kid drank that night. There was no smell of alcohol. All because some hicks up in Wisconsin overreacted about some red cups.

“Think of the children?” No. “Think of the arrogance coming from the adults who refuse to see things any other way.”
AWSuMMcFiDDLeSWiTCH
April 1st, 2008 at 5:24 am
some people are forgetting that these guys may not have called the police themselves
Gorf
April 1st, 2008 at 6:37 am
While I would probably love this as a teen, it’s pretty juvinile and pointless to call the police on yourselves and then waste their time. While it is true that a keg could be filled with anything, give me a freaking break. How many kegs out of 100 are filled with beer. 98, 99? The police had reasonable suspicion, and that’s all they needed.
dcg
April 1st, 2008 at 2:43 pm
In TX, the PD doesn’t have to give you a breath test to charge you with public intoxication. They can arrest you on the spot w/o proof… To make the charge, they have to tell a judge that in their opinion you were a danger to yourself or another person… In this case, faking a kegger would probably be a “dangerous” act…
tron
April 1st, 2008 at 8:47 pm
this is great, i remember when i was that age (just a few years ago) we were always getting accused of drinking even when we werent.in my opinion this just shows how no one trusts kids and thinks everyones up to no good.
To Hell with cops
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:48 am
Cops are belligerent assholes. They truly deserve to be made fools of(which is not very hard). Most of them are not educated, if many even had a minute college experience at any point in their lives. I personally know high school dropouts–aspiring to–and being admitted into the police force. Police have never aided me appropriately in time of crisis. I might not be here today if my family wasn’t there for me in the place of cops. They take their sweet time to act on emergencies, but are right there to write tickets when you exceed the speed limit. What squandered lives they must have, doing nothing but making miserable our freedoms, for no reason at all other than help keep up a perverted version of a moral society.
su.wei
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:41 pm
mad props to these kids! when i was in high school a get together of ours was busted (loud music, no drinking) the cops found a “suspicious baggie” dragged us down to the cop shop, only to figure out it was oregano. haha
Kegerator Builder
April 8th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Seems like a waste of a perfectly good keg to fill it with root beer.
jersey girl
April 8th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
that would be cool
Chris
April 19th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
This was very stupid on the kids part. Having the police there was a waste of money and time. The police have better things to do than go to a teenage root beer party. I don’t think it was funny at all and I was actually hoping one of them had drugs and the laugh would have been on them instead of the police. Morons!
sleepyjohnson
April 28th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
okay cops are gone, get out the akahol
Aleesha Bake
April 30th, 2008 at 9:45 am
I can’t believe the number of anti-cop comments on here, frankly I am disgusted, Seriously people- How are police officers supposed to know which Kegs contain Alcohol and which ones don’t? I mean give me a break, these kids created the illusion of a crime, therefore the police officers had A DUTY TO INVESTIGATE. And police officers are not LAZY GOOD FOR NOTHINGS- and only a completely uneducated person can say that they are all high school dropouts, or only have high school diplomas. My husband with his bachelors degree, advanced training and secondary language skills could be doing ANY JOB HE WANTED, and YET, and YET… he chooses to “serve and protect”– CHOOSES to work difficult shifts, and be gone from home for long hours dealing with everything from druggies, guns in his face, gansters, and child abusers- Because he believes in what he does.
And then some smart-aleck children who have a problem with their SCHOOL SYSTEM- go and mock those who spend their lives working to protect them.
If those kids had really had alcohol and the police had shown up and said “hmmm… well we can’t be sure there is alcohol in there, so lets go and leave these kids alone to have their party” (like you so obviously desire)— and then one of these KIDS had driven home LIKE THEY ALWAYS DO!!! And killed a family on the way home… Everyone would have been BLASTING the cops… I mean seriously guys GROW UP!

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