Last night, three friends and I decided to have a little celebratory party since my parents were out of town and we all had successful first years in college. Now I’m 19 and the others are 18 and 17, so we were careful and didn’t get piss drunk or anything. Yet, around 1 am people decided they were hungry and even though nobody felt drunk we knew well enough not to drive, so we walked to a convenience store around .5 of a mile away. This is where things went downhill.
Upon returning there were around three police cars on there way to respond to a noise complaint, however since we were outside, they stopped us. We were all given breathalizers, I had .05, which is not legally drunk, but still enough since I’m underage and not supposed to have anything beyond .02. The officer was very tough from the start trying to intimidate us, we were truthful and called him sir. When he asked if our parents were home, I was truthful and said no. He took our information (name, birthday, and address) and made us promise not to get behind the wheel of a car (which we wouldn’t have done regardless). Of the one 17-year-old, he didn’t call his parents he just told us to get home with the minor, stop drinking, and stay quietly inside. He added he’d decide whether to charge us with public drunkenness or just disorderly conduct and with that took off.
Now I’m fucked. Hopefully he’ll make it just disorderly conduct or nothing (if he was trying to scare us into not doing anything anymore). Pennsylvania has an underage zero tolerance law, I’m worried that I could lose my drivers license for a mandatory 90 days. Do any dopers know if to issue citations for these offenses he would have had to book us at the station or is getting it in the mail enough? Are breathalizers accurate enough to be the only evidence against us (and I really did have 2 listerine strips moments before taking the test)? To lose my license do I have to have charges filed against me at the station, or is receiving a citation in the mail enough?
I can’t believe it. I’ve survived one year of college and never had a single drink. My first time drinking ever and I have around two drinks and now its going to cost me. This is my first offense, but I don’t even know if Pennsylvania allows judges to give community service or something instead of the required loss of license. Hopefully if I went to court I could maybe plead down the charge?
Fuck. How could my friends and I be so stupid. I can’t have this charge on my record if I want to get into medical school or a good grad school.
It sounds to me like the officer was just trying to scare you into getting your asses inside and not doing anything stupid the rest of the night. It also sounds like it worked :).
I seriously doubt you will hear anything else about this. Let us know if you do.
I’ll second what Cisco said. If he left without hauling anyone off, writing citations, or even calling parents, seems like he was just trying to put the fear of God into you. Try not to lose too much sleep over this, but try to learn from it, too, and don’t do it again.
Oh, and good on you for having the sense to not drive. If you’d been caught at that, you really probably would be screwed.
What a F*'ed up world we live in if your life could be seriously affected by that.
The idea that the USA has come to the point where walking home with a beer in your gut can destroy your future is a travesty. We will all wake up from this zero-tolerance zero-defects nightmare in 20 years and return to sanity. But meanwhile, untold lives will be trashed.
FWIW, I agree with Cisco’s analysis. If he didn’t give you any piece of paper, any summons or “ticket”, I’d bet a hefty chunk of change that’s the last you’ll hear of it.
if you’re in a small town, where the odds on encountering the same cop are good, I’d be pretty careful about drinking until I was of legal age. Cops often give good kids a break, but the second time he sees you he’s likely to think you fooled him the first time. Cops don’t like getting fooled any moore than anyone else.
Actually my chief fear now is receiving a cititation in the mail. I can handle paying a fine but not losing my license for 90 days automatically. He didn’t issue a citation right away, but he had all the information and I suppose I could receive it in the mail any time in the next few weeks. That’s scary. My bac according to the breathalyzer was only .052 which is around half of a drink, maybe less. I don’t want to lose my goddamn license all because of half of a drink. Maybe I could plead down to a lesser charge…
I really wouldn’t sweat this. It’s extremely unlikely that you’ll hear anything official about this. And on the off chance that you do get charged with something serious, here’s your way out (standard IANAL disclaimers apply):
Spend a day (well in advance of your hearing) at municipal court.
Wait until someone in brought before the judge for an alcohol-based offense (don’t worry…it will happen, sooner rather than later).
If this person has a lawyer, see if this lawyer gets the charge knocked down to a next-to-nothing charge.
If so, hire this lawyer.
Every municipal court I’ve ever been exposed to (no, never as a defendant…I used to be a newspaper reporter) has a handful of lawyers who are…erm…close friends with the prosecutor. You’ll pay this guy a nice fee, and he’ll make your problem go away. Seen it happen a hundred times. Until you’re hauled in for something like your third DUI, you can still walk out with nothing more than a fine.
Really, the kid shouldn’t have to do this in the first place. Is it really a law that you can’t have any alcohol in your system if you’re under 21. (Understand I am from the UK, where being 18 I can drink whatever I like.) I can understand if you were driving or causing a nuisance of yourself but for walking down the street is a lame excuse.
He was scaring you. It worked. If he didn’t cite you there and then, he isn’t going to cite you. The information he gathered can be kept as part of a field interview or whatever they call it, but probably not.
He caught you out when you had been drinking. He gave you a warning. He was being tough from the beginning because it helps him control the situation. Don’t worry about it.
The most you have to worry about is your parents seeing a citation in the mail. And, seriously, if the worst that happens is there colleg student son had a few drinks and was responsible enough to walk to get food they will have gotten off lucky.
Yeah, I’ve decided I’m just going to level with my dad so that I don’t lose all of his trust like I would if something DOES come and it blindsides them. I’d rather just tell him what happened, that we were responsible (and stupid at the same time), and that if something does come of it, he won’t be totally surprised. Hell, he went to art school in the 60s, he probably can give me advice.
I believe the officer has to give you some piece of paperat the scene, if you’re to be charged. They are supposed to write the ticket there and then. I’ve known a few police officers, and done a couple ride-alongs. Their paper work had to be in hand, finished, when returning to the station. They also had to have the tickets signed by the recipient to prove the whatever happened, happened as written.
Can’t say 100%. I know if you’re under 21 and caught driving with a BAC of 0.01 or higher, it’s considered DUI. No matter what, the OP was breaking the law. The legal drinking age is 21 in the U.S., so if the cop wanted to be a hard-ass, he could’ve hauled them all in then and there. But since he didn’t issue citations or make an arrest then and there, I’d consider him 99% safe.
He was just trying to scare you. Don’t worry about it. Pennsylvania seems to have an unwritten law making it illegal for people under 30 to exist. :mad:
I asked my sister, who is a cop here in Jersey. She said you have nothing to worry about. He took your information because he has to write up a report on the noise call that he took. If he didn’t give you a summons, ticket, citation, etc. at the time, then he isn’t going to. They don’t mail tickets for underage drinking.
She also said that if he didn’t even take the step of calling parents, then he definitely isn’t going to send you anything. He can get in trouble if you get a ticket for underage drinking and he didn’t call all of your parents.
Actually, walking home to where you’ve had a noise complaint called in on you can get you… a citation.
An underage drinking citation is hardly the end of the world, and is certainly nothing like as damaging as, say, a DUI would have been.
poogas, if the cop left without citing you on the spot, I would bet dollars to donuts that you’re in the clear.
Don’t be ashamed that you f’ed up. Be proud that you were smart enough not to drive. If you had, you’d be reading this in the spoon position with a nice hairy guy called Bubba…
I have family members here in Texas who are cops. They always tell me that alot
of times when they let people off it’s not because they feel sorry for them or anything but because it’s just too much damn paper work. So they’ll opt for what this cop did to you. Which is scare the crap out of you.
Kill the cops with kindness and you’d be surprised with what you can get away with. ESPECIALY if you are a girl.
Nah. I’m pretty sure that grad schools don’t care one way or another if you’ve got a public drunkeness or disorderly conduct charge on your record. (I’ve known a few grad students–smart people, good in their fields, too–who’ve spent the night in the drunk tank a time or two. ) I’ll make a bet that med schools won’t care, either.
Nothing much to do with the thread, but I just wanted to congratulate the OP on having his head screwed on tightly. In this day and age it’s pretty rare that someone would fess up to making the mistake when they could easily just blame the “damn pigs”. BTW, kudos on not getting in a car, and kudos for leveling with your father about it.
With common sense like yours, you’ll do fine in life, even if you hit a few bumps in the road.
