Keg Party Bust Turned Into Search-And-Rescue Operation
AP Graphic
ABINGDON, Va. – It was just before dawn Aug. 23 when the police helicopter skimmed the treeline of the North Fork of the Holston River in a search for the nearly 100 teens who scattered as police raided their beer and bonfire party.
What began shortly before midnight as a frolicking post-football-game keg-fest at 18358 North River Fork Road degenerated into a six-hour search-and-rescue mission because panicked minors aged 12 to 20 scrambled like kitchen cockroaches into hiding.
They dashed into the surrounding woods, hid in open fields of tall grass and splashed across a quick flowing bend in the river after the officers’ quiet, but sudden, arrival. Some teens even made it to the homes of nearby friends and family. Most hid in the fields and woods, while some were found in a rickety barn and a tractor shed on the property.
“There might be some kids there that had passed out,” recalled Virginia State Police helicopter pilot Sgt. John Ratliff, who scanned the area from above with a high-powered searchlight and infrared cameras that zeroed in on body heat.
Forecasts of 50-degree temperatures led lawmen to fear that some teens might become hypothermic while in the woods or on the riverbank.
The incident was confirmed last week by Abingdon police, Washington County Sheriff’s deputies and Virginia Alcohol and Beverage Control agents who charged nearly two dozen minors aged 14 to 20 with underage possession of alcohol. The single 12-year-old found at the party had not been drinking any of the wine coolers, malt liquor or beer there.
Officers also discovered a beer keg with a missing registration tag. Virginia law requires stores to affix to the aluminum barrel a tag citing the name of the buyer, when it was bought, and the address where the keg will be used. Removing the tag is a crime.
Washington County Sheriff’s 1st Sgt. Greg Hogston noted that the buyer, once tracked down by ABC agents, could face multiple counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor – one count for each minor charged with underage drinking.
Most partygoers were Abingdon High students, while others were graduates now enrolled at East Tennessee State University, the University of Virginia and even some Kentucky schools, officials said.
Neighbors and law enforcement said the North Fork River Road home that hosted the party is an unoccupied rental house recently bought by Dr. James A. Mann, who was not at the party. He could not be reached for comment Friday or Saturday at his Abingdon home or business office.
Police did not say who hosted the party, though it could have been teens whose names are being withheld because they are juveniles.
For weeks, rumors circulated through Abingdon High School that some students were planning to celebrate their football team’s season opener against John S. Battle High.
Abingdon High Principal Jeff Noe did not return a call for comment Friday on whether school officials had heard the rumors beforehand or were they made aware of the raid.
Decibel-shattering music tipped off neighbors, who, fearing reprisals by partygoers, requested anonymity.
“They were just loud, hootin’ and hollerin’ and carrying on,” one neighbor said.
Police also heard of the party as it was under way.
“We had received an anonymous ... complaint by someone who had been driving by about a big party with a car by the side of the road with its doors open and stereo on and there were people running around,” Hogston said. “Sure enough, there were people running around and there was music, and it was blaring.”
The Abingdon Falcons trounced John Battle 48-7 earlier that night, so there was plenty to cheer before police arrived.
First came the unmarked police cars. No alarms were raised as the plain-clothed agents mingled in with the crowd. Only after the marked cars pulled into the gravel driveway did a boy standing on the porch scream that police were there and for everyone to run.
One surprised teen mistook an ABC agent for a fellow partier, grabbed the agent by the arm and tried to drag him into the woods, all the while screaming that they had to escape the police.
“The agent just looked at him and said ‘Boy, don’t you know who I am? I’m ABC. Now, why don’t you just sit on down and rest for a minute,’ ” said Hogston, the Washington County Sheriff’s sergeant.
For the next six hours, police waved flashlights into barns, over field grass and around trees in search of teens. Some appeared so drunk that, officers recalled, friends grabbed each of their arms and dragged them into the woods.
Soon, helicopter pilot Ratliff got the call to look for stragglers.
For nearly two hours, he discerned the telltale heat signatures of cows and groundhogs from drunken teens, and then guided officers on the ground to their mark.
Recalled Hogston: “They [the helicopter crew] were saying ‘take 20 feet to your right, take 10 steps to your left ... and we were stepping on them and couldn’t see them because the grass was so high.”
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Reader Reactions
you wasn’t….
ruthimac——if you wasn’t there, then all you have to go on is second hand accounts.you are in the same boat as the wanna-be reporter.
I really am sick of this small town bs. Michael Owens.. im sorry but you need to get your facts straight. You are a tool. Police need to find a better use for tax payers money than to fly helicopters over a party with less than 50 people on private property. And to you AHSSOCCERMOM, i would expect such a comment from an ahs soccer mom.
Very well put, ruthimac. I should probably find a new way to deal with my frustrations besides drinking and ranting on tricities.com. *puts down beer* ..haha just kidding I’m in class. But seriously, I hope I haven’t offended anyone too much. I hope we can all be friends.
Let my just inform concerned parents that I am in no way condoning the actions of my peers at this function (obviously or I would have participated. Secondly my parents have raised me to know what I should and shouldn’t do (again, lack of participation), and I must say that they keep pretty good tabs on where I am and what I’m doing. So again, please don’t make such generalized comments.
I’m also not trying to criticize the police. I understand that this is their job and (most) only have our best interest in mind. I am, on the other hand, criticizing the reporter who not only displayed one side of the arguement, but had elements of the story that were totally incorrect. It would be one thing if there were a few overexaggerations, but these were absolute lies.
I completely understand where some of you are coming from on the potential safety hazard and I’m so sorry to hear of some of the losses in your lives. You’re right, I haven’t experienced or whitnessed the devastation that you have, and no, I hope that I won’t ever. Please don’t think that I’m taking your heed lightly. I too hope that everyone will take that into consideration next time they go out.
What bothers me is how harsh all of you are being toward the participants. Yes, they need to learn. No, it’s not okay. But is that really the best way to go about it? Put yourself back to this age and imagine how you would have reacted to some of this criticism. Now, how many of you actually think that you would have said “Gee, the adults are right and I’m wrong.“ Probably not many of you.
Again, I’m not condoning, I’m just asking that you take a few things into consideration before you rant and rave about how bad Abingdon kids act and how ignorant their parents are.
As to the hypocrisy of the drinking age law (I am assuming the person is over 18), drunkcockroach is fully entitled to his/her opinion. Just because something has been passed through a legislature does not make it morally and socially just. Apartheid, anyone? Illegal inter-racial marriages, anyone? That being said, I doubt it would in any way change the mind of a judge.
Let’s just chalk this one up to very small-scale civil disobedience that kills brain cells and damages livers and call it a day.
Say what you want, but I really don’t think any judge is going to care what I say in some online forum, even if they could prove who it was. Drinking might be illegal but at least have free speech.. until they take that away too. With laws getting stricter all the time it would seem its only a matter of time..
drunkcockroach, I am going to assume you have forgotten that tricities.com tracks IP addresses. So, the judge can order a record and they will know where you are and who you are. Even at the libraries, they know who you are because the libraries keep a log. I guess if you were using a friends computer or something, it may be a little more difficult. But, they would charge them with obstruction if they didn’t tell them you were using the computer. Just keep that in mind
I’m going to comment on the fact they they 18 years name shouldn’t have been listed in the article. I am going to be honest. If you are going to act like an adult, then you need to be treated like an adult. You know the old Bible saying “An Eye for An Eye”? Well, that is the fact here. In fact, I don’t agree with a “minors” name being held out of the article. If you do the crime, then you should pay. And public humiliation is part of it. If you are so proud to go out and break the law and drink, then you should be willing to have your name in the paper whether you are 14 or 100. I am only 25. But, things have changed over the years. When I was kid, you got punished. There were no time outs. And, the another saying is coming true “Spare the rod, spoil the child.“ I have nephews now where my sister hasn’t disciplined them and now they are beyond control. They have no respect for their parents. They have even told them they are going to kill them without any punishment. However, on the other hand, they do respect me and they do talk to me because I don’t spare the rod. If a child is mean or disobedient around me, they are punished with a paddling. It doesn’t leave red marks. It doesn’t cause ay “abuse” a everyone believes these days. And, it doesn’t hamper their creativity. If a parent makes a child mind, then they learn respect. Am I saying all the kids were the parents fault? No. Some of them are, I am sure. However, some kids done it just to be cool I am sure. I earned a lot of lifelong friends by not giving into the pressure of my peers. The ones who did drink and party as minors mostly don’t have the same friends now. Why? Because, they simply were “friends” when they partied and they knew they could have a good time together. A true friend would never try to get someone to do something they knew they shouldn’t do. Was everyone pressured into doing it because they thought it was cool? I doubt it. Each and every individual are the only ones who can determine why they did it.
Either way, if you are a minor and you break the law, then you deserve to have your name put into the news whether it be TV or print. After all, you have decided you are grown and mature enough to do something that is against the law for you to do.
If you are pressured by a friend to drink and do drugs, then you need to find a friend who respects you for who you are. I don’t care what your friend says. If they urge you toward breaking the law, they aren’t your friend.
And, if you are a parent who believes paddling dampers the creativity. Just look at all that is going on with kids these days. School shootings, more drugs and alcohol. And, it all started when the Bible was taken out of schools and when parents stopped punishing the child because it was abuse or would damper their creativity. I got paddled. I never had a broke bone or anything. I wasn’t abused. And, I am told I am very creative by several of my friends and fellow workers.
Ladies and gentlemen please consider that a few of our fellow contributors -mainly drunkcockroach and ruthimac- are (regardless of their chronological age or self professed wisdom and worldliness) indeed children. They and a number of other children have been raised to feel entitled to exemption from socially dictated rules and the consequences of their actions. It seems easier for them to make excuses about other subjects (i.e. changes in law, police over-reaction, the remote location of the event, designated drivers and so on) rather than owning the responsibility and adult would have to accept.
Ruthimac and drunkcockroach, regardless of your sarcasm and snarky retorts, the event you were participating in and defending was illegal. It doesn’t matter when the law was written. It doesn’t matter how many designated drivers were there because you were under 21.
I strongly agree with a number of you that our society suffers from a severe lack of parenting. I am only 31, but I can think back to the simpler times when kids didn’t need cell phones cause your parents KNEW where you were and who you were with -and would check up on you- and kids knew the consequences of violating that trust. Parents - BE PARENTS!! Where were the parents supposed to be when the DD brought their kid home drunk?? Were they okay with this?? It’s just completely unacceptable!
Thank you and keep up the good work WCSD!! Hold the parents responsible too!!
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