Police combat teen binge drinking, fighting

The scent of beer hung heavily in the night air as 20 to 30 teens marched slowly out of a west valley house, escorted by Las Vegas police officers.

Their drunken and frightened expressions were illuminated by the flashing red and blue lights of the dozen or so police cruisers parked in a residential cul-de-sac near Arizona Charlie's Decatur. Neighbors called police after a fight broke out on the street earlier in the evening.

Most of the teens sat quietly on the curb while waiting to be processed, cited for underage alcohol consumption or picked up by their parents. Some mouthed off to officers. Some struggled to make their eyes follow the index finger of the police officer conducting field sobriety tests at 1 a.m.

Welcome to open season on house parties for the Metropolitan Police Department. Officers are trying to combat the binge drinking, drug use and fighting that can lead to fatalities at such gatherings.

During a shift that overlapped late April 2 and early April 3, Las Vegas police handled six party-related calls involving underage drinkers as a Review-Journal reporter and photographer rode along to witness what officers call "party crashing."

It was a slow night, which police said they welcomed. At the house on Images Court, near Decatur Boulevard and U.S. Highway 95, one 15-year-old boy confessed in slurred speech to downing two shots of Grey Goose and a can of Bud Light. Police said another drunken teen had passed out on a bed upstairs after a violent puking session.

A pair of brass knuckles, a small bag of marijuana and a glass smoking pipe had been tossed in the street in front of the house. The drug paraphernalia went unclaimed, and no one was arrested for the items, police said.

For several weeks, Las Vegas officers have been on special patrols to break up such gatherings. In late February, two 17-year-old girls were shot and killed at house parties. Police said the victims were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"The aim is not to have anybody killed this weekend," said Lt. Ted Snodgrass, who has been with Las Vegas police for 27 years. "We bust up these parties so that they're not fighting or drinking or doing those kinds of things. We're going to prevent the shootings (like those) that we've had. That's the main goal, to not have any killings."

The "party crasher" patrols began in March.

On April 3, residents of the house on Images Court returned from a date night to find their 17-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son partying with dozens of friends. Empty beer cans and bottles were strewn about the sidewalk. It was supposed to have been a sleepover with a few teens.

The couple panicked when police arrived and sent the kids to hide upstairs . The mother told police that only her children were home and that no one had been drinking. After minutes of heated arguing, the father finally allowed police into the house and tried to usher the kids outside.

"Why did you lie to us?" Snodgrass asked the mother.

Both parents, who wished to remain anonymous, claimed they did not purchase the alcohol for the minors and did not know exactly what was going on when they got home.

"We tried to take care of it. Jesus Christ, when we walked in and saw all of those kids, we told them to get the hell out," the mother said. "Do you think I want that in my house? Both me and my husband had no idea what was going on. My daughter didn't have any control over what was going on."

Police cited more than 20 teens for alcohol consumption and possession. The father was given a warning. The mother was cited for contributing to the delinquency of a child after lying to police. One teen was arrested on an unrelated juvenile warrant.

Most of the teens will get a slap on the wrist because almost all were first-time offenders, Snodgrass said.

"We've got to get away from the stats and the arrests and things like that. That's not what we're trying to do at all. It's about preventing these get-togethers and these fights. If we let this thing hold, and these kids get progressively drunker, then you get the rub, the fight, and then we got problems."

Earlier, police officers responded to an apartment complex on West Bonanza Road near Rancho Drive, where eight teens between the ages of 15 and 18 were drinking and smoking marijuana.

"They'll start running like sheep when we get there," Snodgrass said.

A teen's older sister, who was not home, had rented the apartment for the party; she was evicted the next morning. The alcohol and drugs were seized, and the teens were detained until their parents arrived.

"We got some booze and we got some dope out of it. It's a good night," one officer said.

At the same apartment complex six months earlier, 18-year-old Calvin Thompson of Las Vegas was shot dead after arguing with another teen during a party gone awry, police said.

Snodgrass said parties can get out of control when kids text or post party information online, which is why the department also has a team of officers monitoring the Internet, a proactive approach to breaking up these parties.

"It's a lot more based on the Web and phones and things of that sort. They text each other and call each other. These kids get things instantly based on what their friends are telling them. It's very fluid now, it moves very quickly."

Police said they don't keep track of the dozens of parties they have broken up except to note there haven't been any deaths since they began the patrols recently.

"Anyone that says in this business that they're definitely doing something hasn't been here long enough," Snodgrass said. "There's not many absolutes here. There are too many variables."

Contact Kristi Jourdan at kjourdan@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279.