Washington County Sheriff Fred Newman says the party was larger than most – 100 kids gathered at a riverside home to revel in the start of the football season.
And while many residents have questioned the police involvement and expense to raid the party Aug. 23, once the partiers ran, there was no other choice. There were dozens of young people who were believed to have been drinking; some fled into fields and woods nearby and others got wet crossing a nearby river.
What started out as a simple effort to shut down an underage party turned into a search-and-rescue effort involving Abingdon town police, sheriff’s deputies, Virginia State Police and state Alcoholic Beverage Control agents.
Teens are going to invent new ways to get into trouble and gathering at a riverside house to drink and socialize is an irresistible draw. But this party quickly grew over the top. Kids came from Abingdon, Johnson City, Tenn., Wise County, Va., and parts of Kentucky. The noise and number of cars made it impossible to conceal. Around midnight on Friday, Aug. 22, police approached to shut it down and young people fled – to the woods, to fields, to nearby houses.
The Virginia State Police eventually used a helicopter and infrared cameras to find stragglers hiding outside.
Eighteen people were charged with underage possession of alcohol.
Asked the cost of the work that night, Newman said he does not intend to calculate it. His sole goal was keeping everyone safe, not determining the cost to do it. “There’s no amount of money that would make up for the loss of life,” he said.
Noble thinking and Newman is right; he gets paid whether his Friday night is a yawner or involves helicopter searches. But Friday night party raids like that which happened Aug. 22-23 are much more expensive than the quieter nights. No one wants to see teens hurt or killed from drinking alcohol or other reckless behavior.
But law enforcement had to spend hours searching for wet, cold and possibly drunken teenagers who ran from a party they weren’t legally old enough to hold in the first place.
A letter claiming to be from an Abingdon High School parent supports Newman in raiding the party and says that is what will curb this behavior. “The more parties that are raided and stopped; maybe the kids will think twice,” the letter reads.
It also chides young people for drinking: “To the kids who think you are cool for drinking ... you’ll look back on these days and you won’t believe how stupid you looked or how stupid you were. If you are lucky enough to survive your teenage years. When you have kids of your own, it changes your whole judgment on the issue.”
Correct and correct. But teens have tried to find ways to drink alcohol for generations.
Concerning to us is the brazen behavior exhibited at this party – an enormous crowd of young people who have little to no respect for the police. When confronted, they ran off and forced an hours-long search.
Concerning also are many adults who defend the behavior with a “kids will be kids” defense. Young people rise to the standards insisted of them.
Young people convicted of possessing alcohol underage usually get community service hours. If running through the woods, cold and afraid, isn’t memory enough, these young people need community work assignments so they don’t forget why this was such a bad idea.
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