Thursday, April 6, 2000 Older Editions

Arresting developments: Chief supports arrests at teen party

By Rebecca Lipchitz

While students who say they weren't drinking at a party last weekend but were arrested anyway believe police should use more discretion in deciding whom to arrest, police are advising those teenagers to choose their company more carefully.

Police Chief Brian Pattullo says he supports the decision of the officers at the scene who arrested 23 youths at a Whispering Pines home last weekend and charged them all with being minors in possession of alcohol.

"We try to look at the circumstances as a whole," says Pattullo, and in this case, arresting everyone at the party was the right thing to do, he says.

Pattullo is concerned that students hear mixed messages. Some parents or other adults in the community encourage kids to designate a driver, while police say teenagers shouldn't need a designated driver in the first place.

Andover High School senior Michael DaSilva says that as a member of school programs GUTS (Growing Up, Taking a Stand) and SADD (Students Against Drunk Driving), he was taught not only to make the right choices, but to look out for others who didn't. He says the programs are endorsed by Andover police.

"We're told not to turn our heads from kids who are drunk, to help them out. What they don't tell you is that it's illegal," says DaSilva who was one of the 23 students arrested Friday. He pleaded not guilty in court last week.

Pattullo says the designated driver program is not targeted at teenagers.

"The designated driver was designed for legal adults. Not for kids to drive other drunk kids," he says.

Earlier in the evening, before the arrests at Whispering Pines on Friday, police stopped a car for speeding and allowed a driver to leave because she said she was a designated driver taking some people home, Pattullo says.

When police arrived at the party, responding to a neighbor's complaint about noise, the girl and the occupants of her car, who had been drinking, were at the party, police say.

"'Designated driver' may seem like an admirable idea, but you're better off to turn around and leave," if you find alcohol or drugs present, Pattullo says to youth.

But while the police endorse the "zero tolerance" policy of expulsion for anyone caught on school grounds with drugs or alcohol -- a policy also endorsed by the Andover's superintendent and the district attorney's office -- officers dealing with situations on non-school grounds can exercise discretion.

That is what student Matthew Shaer had hoped police would do when they entered the home on Whispering Pines Drive last Friday around 11:30 p.m.

"I didn't run. I think a lot of kids were expecting police would single out the kids who were drinking," Shaer says.

DaSilva says that because he was not drinking he also thought he was doing the right thing.

"I had no idea you could be arrested for going to a party and not drinking. (When police arrived) I didn't run. I didn't have anything to run from," DaSilva says.

Shaer wrote a letter to the editor of the Townsman last week (see "He resents zero tolerance," page 9) saying few students were drinking and little beer was present.

But Pattullo says police arrived to find vomit in the house, evidence and the smell of marijuana, more empty beer cans than full beer cans, and some youths climbing up onto the roof.

"An unsafe situation, at best," he says.

Shaer wrote that most of the youths at the party weren't drinking, but ended up getting arrested "for hanging out with (their) friends."

Choices

Pattullo says that when youth are deciding what to do for fun in Andover they also have to decide with whom they should be hanging out.

A youth who makes a decision to hang around with a friend who is drinking underage or is doing drugs, should know they run the risk of being arrested, he says.

"People have to take responsibility for their actions. Somehow we've gotten away from that," Pattullo says.

Shaer says even teenagers who don't drink have friends who drink.

"It's unrealistic to think they'll stop hanging out with any of their friends that drink," Shaer says.

AHS graduate Pete Edgerly, outspoken on issues of youth and the community, says he agrees that people need to take responsibility for their actions, but adds that someone who is underage and not drinking should be given a chance to prove his or her innocence to police.

"It's your job, not the police's job, not your friend's job, to decide you're going to have a sober night," Edgerly says, adding that he regularly spends time with large groups of people, none of whom are doing drugs or drinking.

Edgerly believes people should have the right to a Breathalyzer test. Pattullo says no law requires police to offer suspects such a test.

Shaer would prefer that Andover provide youth with a place to hang out where alcohol won't be present, such as a youth center, or that police use Breathalyzers to determine who is drinking before arresting them.

"I don't pretend to have the solution, but there must be easier ways to get the message through," Shaer says.

Pattullo says that in a situation where police cannot determine who is intoxicated, or possibly a danger to themselves, they err on the side of caution.

That means police will make arrests or take people into protective custody, rather than allow someone to run away and hurt themselves or others, because the lattersituation could lead to a lawsuit against police.

"In that case, we're answering a different question. You're damned if you do, and damned if you don't, but I'd rather be damned for doing it if we can save a kid's life," the chief says.