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Underage drinking.
I went to watch some bands play tonight - and I made the mistake of attending the after party.
It ended up being between 15-20 people in one side of this duplex. When we originally decided to go, no one had alcohol and it was getting too late to buy anything. However, when I got there they had a few mostly empty bottles, but they were nearly empty from before. I don't think a single person there got drunk.
There was a noise complaint~
The police showed up, someone answered the door - then slammed it in the officers face. The person then proceeded to lock the doors, turn all the lights off, close the curtains and get everyone upstairs.
A 15 year old girl had to leave due to curfew, and since neither she or I drank, I decided to walk her out and see what the cop situation was outside. The police came up to us and the three officers asked us a few questions. They asked if we had been drinking in there - we said "no", they asked if we had been smoking pot in there - we said "no", they asked who owned the house, we gave them as much of an answer as we could - since they were already running the address trying to find the owner.
Then they asked how many people were in there, we said we didn't know most of the people in there, and we hadn't been there long. But we thought 7 or 8 people were still in there.
They ran the plates of all the cars parked outside, and they claimed to have seen a person holding a beer while they were looking through the windows. They took our word for it that we didn't drink, and they let us go without a breathalizer or a search. They just ran our ID's.
The cops eventually got inside of the house by contacting the owner of the house and getting permission to enter.
After that semi-long story, we get to the question:
Since kids were drinking inside (some/all of which were minors by a year or two.) but I wasn't. I left and gave the police all the compliance they asked for. Since i'm 18, and I was there - even though I didn't drink at all - Is there anything the police can do to me at this point?
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Maybe give some free advice about: Random Weirdos?
Dont worry you are safe and I am glad you played it safe and were responsible. If you like that advise please rate it.
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Whoever the real Einstein was who slammed the door in the cop's face has the best shot of losing their wiseass attitude. Like they were going to really fool the cops or think they wouldn't find probable cause or permission to enter so everyone goes running upstairs and hides LOL. The fact the the officer saw someone who in his judgment appeared to be a minor drinking alcohol gave him enough suspicion to be able to investigate the situation. Same situation would have occured if everyone was inside and an officer walking by smells the odor of marijuana coming from a house, now he has probable cause to enter property and arrest someone without a warrant or permission- it's called the Plain View doctrine. I also love how people say "They claim" they saw someone doing this and that. It would have been a whole lot better for whoever that was to just be polite and obedient to the officer. Every officer has something called "Discretion" which is the selective enforcement/non-enforcement of a law, such as when you get pulled over and the officer determines on certain circumstances on the situation that he isn't going to issue a summons or make an arrest. Same thing goes for something like this, everyone stood a much better shot of being able to just walk away if they were polite and didn't slam the door in the officer's face, he may have exercised discretion and just told everyone to go home...or he could have taken action, every officer is different and it's his choice.
Also for people who answered..if you think you can't be arrested for underage drinking you are sorely mistaken. All a summons (Ticket) is is an act of discretion by an officer to issue the ticket instead of arresting someone...in other words a summons is "in lieu" of an arrest. Depending on the crime the officer has 3 choices- Enforce by summons, Enforce by arrest or just let it go. And the server of an alcoholic beverage to a minor charge goes to the owner of the property.
The officer determined you weren't drinking and you complied with him so you were let go...to answer your question- You're pretty much in the clear, it is highly unlikely any sanction will occur with you. I am not a police officer so I can of course be wrong about that.
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since you were under 21, it can be assumed that you weren't the provider of the alcohol. if you were over 21 you would have been arrested for providing for a minor. but there's no worry for you.
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I agree with rainbow cherrie. There's probably nothing that they will do to you. After all, they only wanted the information that they asked you about, and you did your part and answered them honestly. And kudos on not drinking! Relax, you did the right thing :]
♥ lena
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Well, usually the cops don't arrest anyone for underage drinking. For the most part, they just scare you a bit.
If they let you go, they probably won't pursue it any further.
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I don't think you have anything to worry about. You are right, you probably shouldn't have attended the party - especially as minors were drinking. However, it's unlikely that the police will do anything to you. If they had suspected that you had been drinking or doing anything wrong they wouldn't have let you go without breathalizing or arresting you or even just taking you to the police station for questioning. I wouldn't worry about it, even if they did want to speak to you again - you haven't done anything wrong so you've got nothing to worry about.
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