When his friends got suspended from school sports because of photos showing them drinking from red cups, Dustin Zebro decided to mount a protest of sorts: he invited scores of kids to a kegger party, which got busted by the cops.
But the kids got the last laugh, and here's why:
Cars lining the street. A house full of young people. A keg and drinking games inside. Police thought they had an underage boozing party on their hands.
But though they made dozens of teens take breath tests, none tested positive for alcohol. That's because the keg contained root beer.
The party was held by a high school student who wanted to show that teens don't always drink alcohol at their parties.
Link - Thanks Louise! | And shock of shock, there's a YouTube Clip:
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.
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.
I've got more of an explanation of the event on my blog if anyone is interested: http://www.legatissimo.info/node/204
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....
SOMETHING SHOULD BE DONE TO CHANGE THIS....MAYBE JUST PROOF THAT THEY ARE IN THE MILITARY ...THIS MIGHT ENCOURGE SOME TO JOIN THE SERVICE...
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.
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.)
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.
LOL Among other things. LMAO
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?
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.
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.
Either way, I want root beer.
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"....
Way to think about the children, cops!
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)
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.
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.
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."
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!
it's a good thing i got glass bottles and not kegs!
"HEY, MR. WIILLLSON!!!!"