7 ms·

Girl buys water, spends night in jail

137 points by commanderj 13y ago

hoi 13y ago
Why does "underage" alochol purchasing require law enforcement officers to draw a gun?
- tome 13y ago
  Because the law enforcement officers have to protect their own lives. This is America, where anyone could be carrying an implement that requires two seconds to kill.
  - rogerbraun 13y ago
    Is it really likely that a 20 year old girl with one box of beer will try to shoot 6 police officers?
    - workbench 13y ago
      Is preventing an adult from drinking alcohol really a constructive use of 6 polices officers?
    - nmridul 13y ago
      If she has a gun, she can shoot at least one police officer. And as a police officer, you don't want to be the one getting hit. So human survival instinct says that you will try to protect yourself (even well trained professional could fail at times to control their basic reaction). But I wonder if it is worth the time, money and effort of 6 police officers to prevent kids (even though she is adult) from drinking ? Drunk driving is one thing, but drinking ?
      - rogerbraun 13y ago
        But by that logic, police should just pull a gun on everyone they ever see, because the person could have gun themselves. I agree with you that this is a big waste of resources, though.
      - mayanksinghal 13y ago
        If I recall correctly, most humans freeze, not shoot. The natural reaction is to either flee or freeze. I think policemen are specifically trained to take the gun out of the holster and press the trigger in such situations.
  - Deestan 13y ago
    > Because the law enforcement officers have to protect their own lives. Against a teenage girl who may have gasp bought some beer? How about: "Excuse me, miss. We suspect you have illegaly purchased alcohol. May we inspect your car, please?" Scenario 1: "Oh! Ok." Car is inspected. "Oh it's just water. Sorry about the trouble, have a good day!" Scenario 2: Girl tries to escape and drives off. Note personalia and license number. File charges as usual. There is no realistic scenario in which they need to threaten her on her life and assault her car because of a suspected 12-pack of beer.
    - Buzaga 13y ago
      At first I thought this was funny and thought about following up with more sarcasm but then it hit me how much this is sad, USA seems 100% psychotic to me these days... I honestly feel like stopping following US-related news because it's all so depressing goddamn
    - pezh0re 13y ago
      I agree - the chances of a teenage girl packing heat is probably small, but it's those small chances that can get you seriously injured. According to this (admittedly outdated) research paper [1], the high-end estimate of traffic stops resulting in the homicide of the police officer is 1:20.1 Million. This doesn't really sound like a traditional traffic stop - more like a sting (something that I couldn't readily find data for). [1] http://blog.lib.umn.edu/jbs/Criminal%20Procedure%20in%20American%20Society/OfficersAssaulted.pdf http://blog.lib.umn.edu/jbs/Criminal%20Procedure%20in%20Amer... (Warning... PDF)
  - DanBC 13y ago
    She had her arms full of a crate of water / "beer". I think that if police are worried about being shot at when they approach under-age people buying alcohol the police might want to change their hyper-aggressive policing style. Guns must be a measure of last resort. When you pull your weapon you must have the intent to kill someone. To have the intent to kill someone you must have reasonable fear that they pose a risk to you. Under 21 year old girl buying "beer" doesn't feel to me like a deadly threat to my life.
    - JoeAltmaier 13y ago
      America has a culture of glorifying police violence. Wasn't true 30 years ago; has been building for decades. Now there isn't a night goes by some cop show doesn't have the good guys beating up the bad guy, threatening to send them to Guantanamo. We're supposed to cheer? Makes me ill. Those cops grew up watching this crap, they know what a 'good' cop is supposed to do.
  - piqufoh 13y ago
    I love countries where guns are illegal for exactly this reason.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - interpol_p 13y ago
    Why did they have to jump on the front of the car, as the article says? That would completely terrify me if I was walking to my car at 10pm in the evening.
- simonh 13y ago
  Isn't that what all Americans do when they meet a stranger? I think Heinlein said something about it being good manners, or the polite thing to do, or something. Can't say the quote made much sense when I read it. I'm a Brit though, so maybe it lost something in translation from American. Over here we used to raise our hats, be we don't have those anymore either.
  - Someone 13y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_This_Horizon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_This_Horizon: One sub-theme of the book is the carrying and use of firearms. In the novel being armed is part of being a man; otherwise he wears a brassard and is considered weak and inferior. Women are allowed but not expected to be armed. Duels, either deadly or survivable, may easily occur when someone feels that they have been wronged or insulted, a custom that keeps order and politeness. A defining quote from the book which is repeated throughout Heinlein's work is, "An armed society is a polite society," is very popular with those who support the personal right to keep and bear arms.
    - simonh 13y ago
      That's the one! We used to have duels and kill people over points of etiquette here too, but that was a long time ago. We decided hats were a better option all round, nice tall black ones, but then we got rid of the hats as well. It's all been down hill ever since. Maybe we should go back to killing each other. Does it work?
- lucian1900 13y ago
  Also, why the hell would it be illegal for someone underage to buy, have or drink alcohol? What kind of stupid law is that? It should only ever be illegal to sell or (as someone overage) buy for someone underage.
qwerta 13y ago
Usual stuff, she will have to plead guilty to get suspended sentence. Then permanent record and ruined life. Officers will get bonus points and salary increase. Justice always wins! Update: apparently charges were dropped
- Ultron 13y ago
  It could possibly be worse. The typical response is something like yours, but there's the outside chance they'll pile on more charges for a longer prison sentence. That's good for the economy because the US has many privately run prisons to fill.
- mherdeg 13y ago
  According to the source article ( http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/bottled-water-purchase-leads-to-night-in-jail-for-uva/article_b5ab5f62-df9b-11e2-81c4-0019bb30f31a.html http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/bottled-water-purchase-lea... ), the prosecutor said that Ms. Daly's account was "factually consistent"; dropped the three felony charges; and defended the police's actions. The fact that the prosecution isn't pushing harder suggests that the story here is essentially true — "a girl was assaulted by a disorderly armed mob on her way out of a grocery store and managed to escape them, but it turned out that they were plainclothes police who had mistaken her bottled water for beer and were trying to arrest her, so they put her in prison overnight and filed three felony charges (which have since been dropped)." Classy, guys. You have to wonder whether anyone in the group who performed the arrest has any kind of remorse or has developed any sort of insight about whether they might have done things differently.
  - qwerta 13y ago
    You are right, charges were dropped. So she is probably going to be fine.
    - Nursie 13y ago
      >> So she is probably going to be fine. I bet she's going to have an all-new viewpoint on law enforcement officers though.
jonahx 13y ago
This story doesn't add up. Why would 7 undercover officers be staking out a local supermarket to take down 20 year old girls buying beer?
- Ygg2 13y ago
  Budget cuts? Police did weirder things for bonus pay. Like cause a man a heart attack, by goading him to a bet a large sum (over some federal minimum). Heart attack was caused by SWAT members assaulting his house. EDIT: Note it's not a heart attack they shot him through the heart. It's from this article http://www.cracked.com/article_19450_6-laws-youve-broken-without-even-realizing-it.html http://www.cracked.com/article_19450_6-laws-youve-broken-wit...
  - robeasthope 13y ago
    Got a link for that story?
    - yfkar 13y ago
      Sounds like two separate stories mixed up. In the gambling case a SWAT member actually shot the man dead: http://reason.com/archives/2011/01/17/justice-for-sal http://reason.com/archives/2011/01/17/justice-for-sal And here's a story of an elderly woman having a heart attack from a flashbang in a failed drug raid: http://gazette.com/grandmother-sues-over-flash-bang-grenade-raid/article/126577 http://gazette.com/grandmother-sues-over-flash-bang-grenade-...
    - Ygg2 13y ago
      http://reason.com/archives/2011/01/17/justice-for-sal http://reason.com/archives/2011/01/17/justice-for-sal Sorry it wasn't a heart attack. They shot him through the heart (it was some heart related mishap). He broke the 1970 gambling act.
- samolang 13y ago
  They work for the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. That is literally their job (as stupid as that might sound).
pfortuny 13y ago
"You don't know all the facts until you complete the investigation,". Man, that is blind faith in so many untrustworthy sources (remember '41 shots?') that I am trying to recover from the shock. Poor girl. Seven people. I say: seven. One, two three, four, five, six, seven. They would have scared everything out of me.
- gutnor 13y ago
  7 people with guns to pursue the buyer of 12 pack. It would at least a homicide to get that amount of police force around here.
mtgx 13y ago
She was lucky she wasn't male and black. Because if she were, they'd probably shoot him, and then say "they thought he was drawing a weapon...as he fled". Not like it hasn't happen exactly like that before. There was even a video of it online. I think if more tourists knew stuff like this is happening in America, they'd stay the hell away from it.
- cones688 13y ago
  Sometimes I think the lack of Armed Police in the UK is a benefit as they take arming an officer with a lethal weapon is a serious matter and requires specific training/psychoanalysis. What possible requirement could the " Alcohol Beverage Control Division" need to be armed?! Does every Government Official get a weapon/carry/threaten permit when they join?!
  - anu_gupta 13y ago
    > Sometimes Not sure I've ever thought that arming British police on a routine basis would be a good thing.
    - cones688 13y ago
      Very True - I really think untrained humans cannot handle the stress and high pressure of logically assessing a potentially lethal situation.
  - rtb 13y ago
    Massive +1 to this. It seems to me that the UK police, since they are not armed, generally try to defuse situations. (Of course, they can call for armed backup if it is necessary.) Time and again, I read of US police unnecessarily escalating situations. If your immediate response to any tension is to pull out a gun and start shouting, then things are very likely to get a lot worse in many cases. Perhaps this is just confirmation bias though. I only get to read about the US cases where things have gone wrong.
    - 13y ago
andypants 13y ago
Are police even allowed to do this if they're not in uniform? I completely understand their reaction to get away when a group of people suddenly draw their guns and try to force you to get out of the car...
tjomk 13y ago
Happens only in US. The government gets more and more paranoid
caf 13y ago
In what sense was pulling a gun justified even if she was holding a 12-pack of beer? "Alcohol Beverage Control" agents? Is this a repost from 1927?
workbench 13y ago
haha wow… America is absolutely hilarious. The fact she was 20 years old is a great punchline
Gigablah 13y ago
This is why I will never visit Saudi Arabia. Wait, where did this happen again?
- muyuu 13y ago
  People still flock to the US and Dubai for some reason. Not me though.
  - EliRivers 13y ago
    I know so many ex-pats who moved to Dubai and constantly told me what a great pace it was to live, but as soon as they had a child moved (back) to the West; many of them not the country they came from, but just somewhere in the West.
aidos 13y ago
I'm always a little amazed that the age for buying booze in the states is 21. Wait, am I understanding this correctly? At the age of 20 she's not allowed to buy alcohol but could have already owned a gun for 2 years? The world is a funny old place.
- camus 13y ago
  Yeah , the country of freedom when you're not even free to buy alcohol at 18 like in most western countries ... what a joke... and they think they are free...
- aray 13y ago
  The biggest thing for me has been that you're old enough to die for your country -- required enlistment for the armed forces selective service ("the draft") -- but not old enough to buy a beer.
  - Tichy 13y ago
    Can you at least drink beer once you are in the army? I can only imagine being in the army without beer could be very, very difficult.
    - VLM 13y ago
      Having been in the Army, admittedly almost 20 years ago, I can assure you that those in charge will very carefully tell you not to drink, yet will be intentionally incredibly inefficient about enforcement, outside of boot camp, etc. Note that one huge difference between Army and civilian life is enforcement of drinking might be a touch lax compared to civilian life, but enforcement of drunken-ness is absolutely draconian compared to civilian. You absolutely, positively do not want a blood alcohol level over 0.0000 when on duty or behind the wheel, even off post or in the barracks, etc. At least in that way my .mil experience was extremely European... you want a beer with that pizza, fine, you know its illegal but I'm not going to stop you. On the other hand god help you if you're caught being drunk, you may as well shoot yourself, its very draconian. You're literally better off smoking weed than being drunk, seriously, and yes I know the army is/was nuts about drug use. You'll merely get kicked out for a failed pee test... for being drunk on duty or behind the wheel you'll serve time. My European analogy is I'm told you really don't want to get busted for DWI in Germany... in Wisconsin its just a minor misdemeanor right up there with being 5 mph over speeding (seriously, WI is legendary for being lax) Like many things in .mil, "good soldiers" get away with quite a bit more than the proverbial platoon F-up can get away with.
esschul 13y ago
You silly Americans, you.
mosselman 13y ago
Greatest nation.
Uchikoma 13y ago
Wow, funny country.
venomsnake 13y ago
To every innocent action there is brutal police overreaction. Newton's long lost fourth law of physics.
Nursie 13y ago
>> "undercover agents from the state's Alcohol Beverage Control" >> " One jumped on the hood of her SUV; another pulled out a gun" What The F*ck America?
- disputin 13y ago
  Indeed. And seven agents for a case of beer? Green card applications dropping much?
perlpimp 13y ago
honestly it is fark.com grade material :)
- Nursie 13y ago
  Actually I think I saw this on fark a couple of days ago...
aaron695 13y ago
Important as these stories are to get out, really they are handled by other news outlets quite well. Exactly what one learns from one incident, in one state, in one country is hard to say. The story has no round up of a greater meaning other than the one incident which leads the reader without any cause and effect. Is this American budgets cuts? Is this the problem with counties having to much power? Is this the militarisation of the police force? What is the trend here if any? As per news is bad for you, I think this is one of them. High stress, low information.
icantthinkofone 13y ago
My son's a cop. He said what I was thinking. There is far more going on here than what the story states and the reporter is not asking the right questions or the agents can't say. In either case, the girl got caught up in something bigger than the writer says by mistake. Nothing to see here. Move on.
- demallien 13y ago
  Unless you're suggesting that the girl actually was up to something nefarious, there absolutely is something to see here. Police should not be drawing weapons for anything other than an imminate danger to human life. Watching the police in action is the one negative experience that I have had in the US. You guys really need to calm your (oversized) police force down - they're thugs in uniform.
- Nursie 13y ago
  So maybe there was some sort of bust going down on the place she bought the water, after a suspected chain of underage sales. You still don't pull guns on people you suspect may be carrying a case of beer, then lock them up and file felony charges when it turns out they haven't done anything more than get scared by your paramilitary tactics and try to escape from unknown, out of uniform assailants.
- muuck 13y ago
  You know this how? You're son isn't more familiar with this case than we are is he? The fact that the charges are dropped is somewhat telling.
- samolang 13y ago
  I don't think so. They work for the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. This is about as exciting as their job gets.
- joe5150 13y ago
  "[S]omething bigger..." eh? That's conveniently non-specific. All I can do is echo the other comments, that regardless of whether or not something "bigger" is going on, the response is absolutely disproportionate, and also remind you that Virginia does have actual police to handle "bigger" problems than busting underage alcohol possession.
muuck 13y ago
Isn't pulling a gun on a supermarket customer a bit of an overkill?
alex_doom 13y ago
To serve and annoy. Thanks for keeping our city safe from the dangerous and out of control 20 year-old college females. They are quite the scourge on our modern surburbias.
- VLM 13y ago
  "Thanks for keeping our city safe from the dangerous and out of control 20 year-old college females. They are quite the scourge on our modern surburbias." I'm sure there's a "girls gone wild" joke in there somewhere.
alan_cx 13y ago
Freedom, hey? All a bit Sharia, no?
dsego 13y ago
I've had a similar thing happen to me (I live in Croatia). It happened a few years back so some details are hazy now. It was a rainy evening and I was picking up my brother and we were to drive home for the weekend. His girlfriend was also with him. So, I pick them up and drive to this small parking space to turn the car around. The moment I circled the car around the parking, an unmarked Octavia reverses in front of me, with two bald guys in sport jackets running towards me. I didn't know how to react, in a second or two all sorts of scenarios went thorough my mind. Were they robbers? Then I saw them moving their hands towards their hips. Going for guns? Should I put the car in reverse and try to escape? They pulled out what looked like badges and started yelling to turn off the engine and step out. I still believe t was a leap of faith on my part, trusting them to be the police and I'm afraid of what might've happened if I acted differently. They asked us to empty our pockets, patted us, searched the car and just left, no explanation, no sorry, nothing. They didn't search the girl, I guess it's against the law or something. My brother jokes how one of the officers persistently asked him if he had something in his pants, and all he thought was "yeah, shit, because I almost shat myself". I suppose they were on a stakeout, probably looking for narcotics dealers or something, who knows. It wasn't a pleasant experience at all.
etherael 13y ago
These days, as an anarcho capitalist, I just feel like the entire world is continuously handing me ammunition to justify my position, and I have had plenty for years. Both amusing and sad.
monsterix 13y ago
I don't know if there is a study or theory to support this, but it seems that the longer any two opposing sides (like the police and criminals) face each other, the stronger is the influence of one over the other. To a point when both sides have picked up significant good/bad behavior from each other. And then the very same police looks both aggressive and distasteful to the rest of us - i.e those who were not in the loop ever. Wait, quantum entanglement?
brianbreslin 13y ago
As someone who went to UVA, this isn't entirely surprising, but it still saddens me. The cops there are largely bored, and they put too much emphasis on the state sanctioned ABC monopoly over liquor.
chris_wot 13y ago
Looks like they have been deluged with complaints. They have posted something on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/notes/virginia-department-of-alcoholic-beverage-control/clarifying-abcs-involvement-in-april-11-charlottesville-incident/10151739068971788 https://www.facebook.com/notes/virginia-department-of-alcoho...
pezh0re 13y ago
It sounds like something else is at play here. You wouldn't typically send a full assault team to grab underage drinkers. If you were looking for a known fugitive/dangerous suspect that happens to frequent a grocery store for beer on the other hand...
chris_wot 13y ago
There's something very odd about the Virginian Department of Alcohol Beverage Control. They seem to arrest people for carrying water, but they hold alcohol tasting sessions in their government owned liquor shops.
muriithi 13y ago
What about being arrested for filming the police and getting your dog shot dead after getting out of the car and lunging at an officer? http://reason.com/blog/2013/07/01/get-cuffed-for-filming-police-your-dog-g http://reason.com/blog/2013/07/01/get-cuffed-for-filming-pol...
killercup 13y ago
So, when I was 17, I bought some cases of beer. When I came out of the supermarket (with the beer visible in my cart), I walked by some (uniformed and probably armed) police officers. I greeted them and they wished me a nice weekend. Because in Germany, police officers are usually quite polite.
- dsego 13y ago
  And in Germany drinking beer is like drinking water ;) (I have one uncle in Nuremberg and another in Pforzheim).
Vivtek 13y ago
http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/bottled-water-purchase-leads-to-night-in-jail-for-uva/article_b5ab5f62-df9b-11e2-81c4-0019bb30f31a.html http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/bottled-water-purchase-lea... There's the original article - that hasn't been edited by deleting text and making later references to it nonsensical.
vfclists 13y ago
When are Americans going to see this as essentially an infringement of their rights as adults? Yes their are adults. At the age of 20 Americans are old enough to join the army and engage in combat duty, drive, run bank accounts, be tried as adults and even be sentenced to death. And yet drinking at the age 20 is perceived as an imprisonable offence, and law enforcement officers consider it reason to arrest adults because of that? Frankly Americans tolerate too much nonsense from their corrupt and hypocritical law makers. It seems to be one the laws retained to enable their fascist state to criminalize their citizens so they can have something to hold over them.
wallawe 13y ago
Board members: http://www.abc.virginia.gov/admin/board.html http://www.abc.virginia.gov/admin/board.html
gregPC 13y ago
I'm so glad my taxes are being used to fund 6 undercover officers looking for a 20 year old buying beer. And seriously, they pull a gun on what they think is a person fleeing, for buying beer. You get the license plate, you go to house.. you don't jump on hood with guns drawn.
fmavituna 13y ago
The whole situation is ridiculous but I'm especially interested in this bit: "They were showing unidentifiable badges after they approached us, but we became frightened, as they were not in anything close to a uniform" This happened to me when I was travelling in Europe, a cop without a uniform approached to me on the train somewhere between Netherlands and Germany and asked me for my ID. I asked for his ID, he flashed something (obviously I had no freaking idea whether it was legit, no idea what was even written on it since I don't know the language). What do you do in this case? Do you obey or challenge more? Isn't that dangerous as anyone can flash some random / fake badge and cause you to go with them, gather private information or worse?
sfall 13y ago
maybe you don't file charges until you complete an investigation
shirro 13y ago
It will be nice to take my son down the pub on his 18th, buy him a nice cold beer, congratulate him on reaching adulthood and give thanks that we don't live in a backwood shithole like the USA.
happywolf 13y ago
"One jumped on the hood of her SUV; another pulled out a gun": Do the girls deserve such treatment just because the police suspected they possess alcohol? Do you need firearms to handle such situation? US looks more and more like a police state.

137 points by commanderj 13y ago

hoi 13y ago

Why does "underage" alochol purchasing require law enforcement officers to draw a gun?

tome 13y ago
Because the law enforcement officers have to protect their own lives. This is America, where anyone could be carrying an implement that requires two seconds to kill.
- rogerbraun 13y ago
  Is it really likely that a 20 year old girl with one box of beer will try to shoot 6 police officers?
  - workbench 13y ago
    Is preventing an adult from drinking alcohol really a constructive use of 6 polices officers?
  - nmridul 13y ago
    If she has a gun, she can shoot at least one police officer. And as a police officer, you don't want to be the one getting hit. So human survival instinct says that you will try to protect yourself (even well trained professional could fail at times to control their basic reaction). But I wonder if it is worth the time, money and effort of 6 police officers to prevent kids (even though she is adult) from drinking ? Drunk driving is one thing, but drinking ?
    - rogerbraun 13y ago
      But by that logic, police should just pull a gun on everyone they ever see, because the person could have gun themselves. I agree with you that this is a big waste of resources, though.
    - mayanksinghal 13y ago
      If I recall correctly, most humans freeze, not shoot. The natural reaction is to either flee or freeze. I think policemen are specifically trained to take the gun out of the holster and press the trigger in such situations.
- Deestan 13y ago
  > Because the law enforcement officers have to protect their own lives. Against a teenage girl who may have gasp bought some beer? How about: "Excuse me, miss. We suspect you have illegaly purchased alcohol. May we inspect your car, please?" Scenario 1: "Oh! Ok." Car is inspected. "Oh it's just water. Sorry about the trouble, have a good day!" Scenario 2: Girl tries to escape and drives off. Note personalia and license number. File charges as usual. There is no realistic scenario in which they need to threaten her on her life and assault her car because of a suspected 12-pack of beer.
  - Buzaga 13y ago
    At first I thought this was funny and thought about following up with more sarcasm but then it hit me how much this is sad, USA seems 100% psychotic to me these days... I honestly feel like stopping following US-related news because it's all so depressing goddamn
  - pezh0re 13y ago
    I agree - the chances of a teenage girl packing heat is probably small, but it's those small chances that can get you seriously injured. According to this (admittedly outdated) research paper [1], the high-end estimate of traffic stops resulting in the homicide of the police officer is 1:20.1 Million. This doesn't really sound like a traditional traffic stop - more like a sting (something that I couldn't readily find data for). [1] http://blog.lib.umn.edu/jbs/Criminal%20Procedure%20in%20American%20Society/OfficersAssaulted.pdf http://blog.lib.umn.edu/jbs/Criminal%20Procedure%20in%20Amer... (Warning... PDF)
- DanBC 13y ago
  She had her arms full of a crate of water / "beer". I think that if police are worried about being shot at when they approach under-age people buying alcohol the police might want to change their hyper-aggressive policing style. Guns must be a measure of last resort. When you pull your weapon you must have the intent to kill someone. To have the intent to kill someone you must have reasonable fear that they pose a risk to you. Under 21 year old girl buying "beer" doesn't feel to me like a deadly threat to my life.
  - JoeAltmaier 13y ago
    America has a culture of glorifying police violence. Wasn't true 30 years ago; has been building for decades. Now there isn't a night goes by some cop show doesn't have the good guys beating up the bad guy, threatening to send them to Guantanamo. We're supposed to cheer? Makes me ill. Those cops grew up watching this crap, they know what a 'good' cop is supposed to do.
- piqufoh 13y ago
  I love countries where guns are illegal for exactly this reason.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- interpol_p 13y ago
  Why did they have to jump on the front of the car, as the article says? That would completely terrify me if I was walking to my car at 10pm in the evening.
simonh 13y ago
Isn't that what all Americans do when they meet a stranger? I think Heinlein said something about it being good manners, or the polite thing to do, or something. Can't say the quote made much sense when I read it. I'm a Brit though, so maybe it lost something in translation from American. Over here we used to raise our hats, be we don't have those anymore either.
- Someone 13y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_This_Horizon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_This_Horizon: One sub-theme of the book is the carrying and use of firearms. In the novel being armed is part of being a man; otherwise he wears a brassard and is considered weak and inferior. Women are allowed but not expected to be armed. Duels, either deadly or survivable, may easily occur when someone feels that they have been wronged or insulted, a custom that keeps order and politeness. A defining quote from the book which is repeated throughout Heinlein's work is, "An armed society is a polite society," is very popular with those who support the personal right to keep and bear arms.
  - simonh 13y ago
    That's the one! We used to have duels and kill people over points of etiquette here too, but that was a long time ago. We decided hats were a better option all round, nice tall black ones, but then we got rid of the hats as well. It's all been down hill ever since. Maybe we should go back to killing each other. Does it work?
lucian1900 13y ago
Also, why the hell would it be illegal for someone underage to buy, have or drink alcohol? What kind of stupid law is that? It should only ever be illegal to sell or (as someone overage) buy for someone underage.

qwerta 13y ago

Usual stuff, she will have to plead guilty to get suspended sentence. Then permanent record and ruined life. Officers will get bonus points and salary increase. Justice always wins! Update: apparently charges were dropped

Ultron 13y ago
It could possibly be worse. The typical response is something like yours, but there's the outside chance they'll pile on more charges for a longer prison sentence. That's good for the economy because the US has many privately run prisons to fill.
mherdeg 13y ago
According to the source article ( http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/bottled-water-purchase-leads-to-night-in-jail-for-uva/article_b5ab5f62-df9b-11e2-81c4-0019bb30f31a.html http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/bottled-water-purchase-lea... ), the prosecutor said that Ms. Daly's account was "factually consistent"; dropped the three felony charges; and defended the police's actions. The fact that the prosecution isn't pushing harder suggests that the story here is essentially true — "a girl was assaulted by a disorderly armed mob on her way out of a grocery store and managed to escape them, but it turned out that they were plainclothes police who had mistaken her bottled water for beer and were trying to arrest her, so they put her in prison overnight and filed three felony charges (which have since been dropped)." Classy, guys. You have to wonder whether anyone in the group who performed the arrest has any kind of remorse or has developed any sort of insight about whether they might have done things differently.
- qwerta 13y ago
  You are right, charges were dropped. So she is probably going to be fine.
  - Nursie 13y ago
    >> So she is probably going to be fine. I bet she's going to have an all-new viewpoint on law enforcement officers though.

jonahx 13y ago

This story doesn't add up. Why would 7 undercover officers be staking out a local supermarket to take down 20 year old girls buying beer?

Ygg2 13y ago
Budget cuts? Police did weirder things for bonus pay. Like cause a man a heart attack, by goading him to a bet a large sum (over some federal minimum). Heart attack was caused by SWAT members assaulting his house. EDIT: Note it's not a heart attack they shot him through the heart. It's from this article http://www.cracked.com/article_19450_6-laws-youve-broken-without-even-realizing-it.html http://www.cracked.com/article_19450_6-laws-youve-broken-wit...
- robeasthope 13y ago
  Got a link for that story?
  - yfkar 13y ago
    Sounds like two separate stories mixed up. In the gambling case a SWAT member actually shot the man dead: http://reason.com/archives/2011/01/17/justice-for-sal http://reason.com/archives/2011/01/17/justice-for-sal And here's a story of an elderly woman having a heart attack from a flashbang in a failed drug raid: http://gazette.com/grandmother-sues-over-flash-bang-grenade-raid/article/126577 http://gazette.com/grandmother-sues-over-flash-bang-grenade-...
  - Ygg2 13y ago
    http://reason.com/archives/2011/01/17/justice-for-sal http://reason.com/archives/2011/01/17/justice-for-sal Sorry it wasn't a heart attack. They shot him through the heart (it was some heart related mishap). He broke the 1970 gambling act.
samolang 13y ago
They work for the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. That is literally their job (as stupid as that might sound).

pfortuny 13y ago

"You don't know all the facts until you complete the investigation,". Man, that is blind faith in so many untrustworthy sources (remember '41 shots?') that I am trying to recover from the shock. Poor girl. Seven people. I say: seven. One, two three, four, five, six, seven. They would have scared everything out of me.

gutnor 13y ago
7 people with guns to pursue the buyer of 12 pack. It would at least a homicide to get that amount of police force around here.

mtgx 13y ago

She was lucky she wasn't male and black. Because if she were, they'd probably shoot him, and then say "they thought he was drawing a weapon...as he fled". Not like it hasn't happen exactly like that before. There was even a video of it online. I think if more tourists knew stuff like this is happening in America, they'd stay the hell away from it.

cones688 13y ago
Sometimes I think the lack of Armed Police in the UK is a benefit as they take arming an officer with a lethal weapon is a serious matter and requires specific training/psychoanalysis. What possible requirement could the " Alcohol Beverage Control Division" need to be armed?! Does every Government Official get a weapon/carry/threaten permit when they join?!
- anu_gupta 13y ago
  > Sometimes Not sure I've ever thought that arming British police on a routine basis would be a good thing.
  - cones688 13y ago
    Very True - I really think untrained humans cannot handle the stress and high pressure of logically assessing a potentially lethal situation.
- rtb 13y ago
  Massive +1 to this. It seems to me that the UK police, since they are not armed, generally try to defuse situations. (Of course, they can call for armed backup if it is necessary.) Time and again, I read of US police unnecessarily escalating situations. If your immediate response to any tension is to pull out a gun and start shouting, then things are very likely to get a lot worse in many cases. Perhaps this is just confirmation bias though. I only get to read about the US cases where things have gone wrong.
  - 13y ago

andypants 13y ago

Are police even allowed to do this if they're not in uniform? I completely understand their reaction to get away when a group of people suddenly draw their guns and try to force you to get out of the car...

tjomk 13y ago

Happens only in US. The government gets more and more paranoid

caf 13y ago

In what sense was pulling a gun justified even if she was holding a 12-pack of beer? "Alcohol Beverage Control" agents? Is this a repost from 1927?

workbench 13y ago

haha wow… America is absolutely hilarious. The fact she was 20 years old is a great punchline

Gigablah 13y ago

This is why I will never visit Saudi Arabia. Wait, where did this happen again?

muyuu 13y ago
People still flock to the US and Dubai for some reason. Not me though.
- EliRivers 13y ago
  I know so many ex-pats who moved to Dubai and constantly told me what a great pace it was to live, but as soon as they had a child moved (back) to the West; many of them not the country they came from, but just somewhere in the West.

aidos 13y ago

I'm always a little amazed that the age for buying booze in the states is 21. Wait, am I understanding this correctly? At the age of 20 she's not allowed to buy alcohol but could have already owned a gun for 2 years? The world is a funny old place.

camus 13y ago
Yeah , the country of freedom when you're not even free to buy alcohol at 18 like in most western countries ... what a joke... and they think they are free...
aray 13y ago
The biggest thing for me has been that you're old enough to die for your country -- required enlistment for the armed forces selective service ("the draft") -- but not old enough to buy a beer.
- Tichy 13y ago
  Can you at least drink beer once you are in the army? I can only imagine being in the army without beer could be very, very difficult.
  - VLM 13y ago
    Having been in the Army, admittedly almost 20 years ago, I can assure you that those in charge will very carefully tell you not to drink, yet will be intentionally incredibly inefficient about enforcement, outside of boot camp, etc. Note that one huge difference between Army and civilian life is enforcement of drinking might be a touch lax compared to civilian life, but enforcement of drunken-ness is absolutely draconian compared to civilian. You absolutely, positively do not want a blood alcohol level over 0.0000 when on duty or behind the wheel, even off post or in the barracks, etc. At least in that way my .mil experience was extremely European... you want a beer with that pizza, fine, you know its illegal but I'm not going to stop you. On the other hand god help you if you're caught being drunk, you may as well shoot yourself, its very draconian. You're literally better off smoking weed than being drunk, seriously, and yes I know the army is/was nuts about drug use. You'll merely get kicked out for a failed pee test... for being drunk on duty or behind the wheel you'll serve time. My European analogy is I'm told you really don't want to get busted for DWI in Germany... in Wisconsin its just a minor misdemeanor right up there with being 5 mph over speeding (seriously, WI is legendary for being lax) Like many things in .mil, "good soldiers" get away with quite a bit more than the proverbial platoon F-up can get away with.

esschul 13y ago

You silly Americans, you.

mosselman 13y ago

Greatest nation.

Uchikoma 13y ago

Wow, funny country.

venomsnake 13y ago

To every innocent action there is brutal police overreaction. Newton's long lost fourth law of physics.

Nursie 13y ago

>> "undercover agents from the state's Alcohol Beverage Control" >> " One jumped on the hood of her SUV; another pulled out a gun" What The F*ck America?

disputin 13y ago
Indeed. And seven agents for a case of beer? Green card applications dropping much?

perlpimp 13y ago

honestly it is fark.com grade material :)

Nursie 13y ago
Actually I think I saw this on fark a couple of days ago...

aaron695 13y ago

Important as these stories are to get out, really they are handled by other news outlets quite well. Exactly what one learns from one incident, in one state, in one country is hard to say. The story has no round up of a greater meaning other than the one incident which leads the reader without any cause and effect. Is this American budgets cuts? Is this the problem with counties having to much power? Is this the militarisation of the police force? What is the trend here if any? As per news is bad for you, I think this is one of them. High stress, low information.

icantthinkofone 13y ago

My son's a cop. He said what I was thinking. There is far more going on here than what the story states and the reporter is not asking the right questions or the agents can't say. In either case, the girl got caught up in something bigger than the writer says by mistake. Nothing to see here. Move on.

demallien 13y ago
Unless you're suggesting that the girl actually was up to something nefarious, there absolutely is something to see here. Police should not be drawing weapons for anything other than an imminate danger to human life. Watching the police in action is the one negative experience that I have had in the US. You guys really need to calm your (oversized) police force down - they're thugs in uniform.
Nursie 13y ago
So maybe there was some sort of bust going down on the place she bought the water, after a suspected chain of underage sales. You still don't pull guns on people you suspect may be carrying a case of beer, then lock them up and file felony charges when it turns out they haven't done anything more than get scared by your paramilitary tactics and try to escape from unknown, out of uniform assailants.
muuck 13y ago
You know this how? You're son isn't more familiar with this case than we are is he? The fact that the charges are dropped is somewhat telling.
samolang 13y ago
I don't think so. They work for the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. This is about as exciting as their job gets.
joe5150 13y ago
"[S]omething bigger..." eh? That's conveniently non-specific. All I can do is echo the other comments, that regardless of whether or not something "bigger" is going on, the response is absolutely disproportionate, and also remind you that Virginia does have actual police to handle "bigger" problems than busting underage alcohol possession.

muuck 13y ago

Isn't pulling a gun on a supermarket customer a bit of an overkill?

alex_doom 13y ago

To serve and annoy. Thanks for keeping our city safe from the dangerous and out of control 20 year-old college females. They are quite the scourge on our modern surburbias.

VLM 13y ago
"Thanks for keeping our city safe from the dangerous and out of control 20 year-old college females. They are quite the scourge on our modern surburbias." I'm sure there's a "girls gone wild" joke in there somewhere.

alan_cx 13y ago

Freedom, hey? All a bit Sharia, no?

dsego 13y ago

I've had a similar thing happen to me (I live in Croatia). It happened a few years back so some details are hazy now. It was a rainy evening and I was picking up my brother and we were to drive home for the weekend. His girlfriend was also with him. So, I pick them up and drive to this small parking space to turn the car around. The moment I circled the car around the parking, an unmarked Octavia reverses in front of me, with two bald guys in sport jackets running towards me. I didn't know how to react, in a second or two all sorts of scenarios went thorough my mind. Were they robbers? Then I saw them moving their hands towards their hips. Going for guns? Should I put the car in reverse and try to escape? They pulled out what looked like badges and started yelling to turn off the engine and step out. I still believe t was a leap of faith on my part, trusting them to be the police and I'm afraid of what might've happened if I acted differently. They asked us to empty our pockets, patted us, searched the car and just left, no explanation, no sorry, nothing. They didn't search the girl, I guess it's against the law or something. My brother jokes how one of the officers persistently asked him if he had something in his pants, and all he thought was "yeah, shit, because I almost shat myself". I suppose they were on a stakeout, probably looking for narcotics dealers or something, who knows. It wasn't a pleasant experience at all.

etherael 13y ago

These days, as an anarcho capitalist, I just feel like the entire world is continuously handing me ammunition to justify my position, and I have had plenty for years. Both amusing and sad.

monsterix 13y ago

I don't know if there is a study or theory to support this, but it seems that the longer any two opposing sides (like the police and criminals) face each other, the stronger is the influence of one over the other. To a point when both sides have picked up significant good/bad behavior from each other. And then the very same police looks both aggressive and distasteful to the rest of us - i.e those who were not in the loop ever. Wait, quantum entanglement?

brianbreslin 13y ago

As someone who went to UVA, this isn't entirely surprising, but it still saddens me. The cops there are largely bored, and they put too much emphasis on the state sanctioned ABC monopoly over liquor.

chris_wot 13y ago

Looks like they have been deluged with complaints. They have posted something on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/notes/virginia-department-of-alcoholic-beverage-control/clarifying-abcs-involvement-in-april-11-charlottesville-incident/10151739068971788 https://www.facebook.com/notes/virginia-department-of-alcoho...

pezh0re 13y ago

It sounds like something else is at play here. You wouldn't typically send a full assault team to grab underage drinkers. If you were looking for a known fugitive/dangerous suspect that happens to frequent a grocery store for beer on the other hand...

chris_wot 13y ago

There's something very odd about the Virginian Department of Alcohol Beverage Control. They seem to arrest people for carrying water, but they hold alcohol tasting sessions in their government owned liquor shops.

muriithi 13y ago

What about being arrested for filming the police and getting your dog shot dead after getting out of the car and lunging at an officer? http://reason.com/blog/2013/07/01/get-cuffed-for-filming-police-your-dog-g http://reason.com/blog/2013/07/01/get-cuffed-for-filming-pol...

killercup 13y ago

So, when I was 17, I bought some cases of beer. When I came out of the supermarket (with the beer visible in my cart), I walked by some (uniformed and probably armed) police officers. I greeted them and they wished me a nice weekend. Because in Germany, police officers are usually quite polite.

dsego 13y ago
And in Germany drinking beer is like drinking water ;) (I have one uncle in Nuremberg and another in Pforzheim).

Vivtek 13y ago

http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/bottled-water-purchase-leads-to-night-in-jail-for-uva/article_b5ab5f62-df9b-11e2-81c4-0019bb30f31a.html http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/bottled-water-purchase-lea... There's the original article - that hasn't been edited by deleting text and making later references to it nonsensical.

vfclists 13y ago

When are Americans going to see this as essentially an infringement of their rights as adults? Yes their are adults. At the age of 20 Americans are old enough to join the army and engage in combat duty, drive, run bank accounts, be tried as adults and even be sentenced to death. And yet drinking at the age 20 is perceived as an imprisonable offence, and law enforcement officers consider it reason to arrest adults because of that? Frankly Americans tolerate too much nonsense from their corrupt and hypocritical law makers. It seems to be one the laws retained to enable their fascist state to criminalize their citizens so they can have something to hold over them.

wallawe 13y ago

Board members: http://www.abc.virginia.gov/admin/board.html http://www.abc.virginia.gov/admin/board.html

gregPC 13y ago

I'm so glad my taxes are being used to fund 6 undercover officers looking for a 20 year old buying beer. And seriously, they pull a gun on what they think is a person fleeing, for buying beer. You get the license plate, you go to house.. you don't jump on hood with guns drawn.

fmavituna 13y ago

The whole situation is ridiculous but I'm especially interested in this bit: "They were showing unidentifiable badges after they approached us, but we became frightened, as they were not in anything close to a uniform" This happened to me when I was travelling in Europe, a cop without a uniform approached to me on the train somewhere between Netherlands and Germany and asked me for my ID. I asked for his ID, he flashed something (obviously I had no freaking idea whether it was legit, no idea what was even written on it since I don't know the language). What do you do in this case? Do you obey or challenge more? Isn't that dangerous as anyone can flash some random / fake badge and cause you to go with them, gather private information or worse?

sfall 13y ago

maybe you don't file charges until you complete an investigation

shirro 13y ago

It will be nice to take my son down the pub on his 18th, buy him a nice cold beer, congratulate him on reaching adulthood and give thanks that we don't live in a backwood shithole like the USA.

happywolf 13y ago

"One jumped on the hood of her SUV; another pulled out a gun": Do the girls deserve such treatment just because the police suspected they possess alcohol? Do you need firearms to handle such situation? US looks more and more like a police state.