Just a party or danger zone?

By Frank Bi

Like a cheetah hunting zebra, the arrival of police officers at a house party causes a herd of teenagers to scatter all directions. Following their survival instincts, the fearful teens flee out of the walkout basement door and then try to scale a white picket fence bordering the yard.

Instead, the pack ends up trampling the fence down while the police officers, shaking their heads, look on. Not only has a scenario like this happened, but it is not uncommon to see teens jump off decks and climb through narrow windows to escape the police.

“It’s almost an instinct to run when you see the police,” said Adam, now 18, from Eden Prairie High School. The names of sources in this story have been changed.

Getting caught
Unfortunately for Adam, he was sleeping when police arrived at his house, which never gave him a chance to run.

“The first thing I remember is being woken up by an officer and being led to the kitchen with (my friends) and given breathalyzers,” Adam said.

A friend had gone home early from the party and her parents suspected she had been drinking alcohol at Adam’s, leading them to call the police to report the underage drinking.

Adam and his friends were each given a stern lecture and cited for underage drinking, he said. When the high school caught wind of the charges Adam received, they enrolled him in an underage drinking class as part of his rehabilitation.

2,000 arrests of juveniles just a fraction of teen crime
Since 2006, there have been 700 cases in Eden Prairie of underage drinking with as young as a 14-year-old arrested, according to Eden Prairie Police records.

It is not uncommon to come back to school on a Monday and hear that someone has been busted for alcohol or arrested for something else. But for every arrest, there are scores that get away with breaking the law.

“The arrests are actually a very small portion of the actual number of juveniles doing drugs and drinking,” said Eden Prairie High School Police Liaison Officer Jim Schlossmacher.

Since 2006, there have been close to 2,000 juvenile arrests in Eden Prairie with nearly half of them being alcohol or drug related, but that is not all. Eden Prairie has seen a significant increase in motor vehicle tampering and theft from a vehicle, home, or store.

“The numbers are of the arrests we have made, and some are repeat offenders,” said Schlossmacher. “When we do arrest someone, say for shoplifting, the police and the judge often assume he or she has committed the crime more than once; they could have done it three times or dozens of times, but this time they got unlucky and were caught.”

A tense relationship
There is a tension between teens and police officers. Some teens seem to think that being busted for illegal behavior at all is unfair, while police officers view it as trying to help them.

“As law enforcement, especially dealing with juveniles, it is important to work with the teenagers so they will not follow a criminal lifestyle,” said Schlossmacher, “because once they turn 18, there is no forgiveness or second chance like there is as a juvenile.”

To many teenagers, the police are their public enemy No. 1. Pick a random high school junior or senior, and more likely than not, he or she can share a story about a police confrontation gone wrong.

“The sun was blinding me and out of nowhere I totaled the police car in front of me,” said Amy, 18, of Eden Prairie. “The guy was a total idiot to me! Not only had I just totaled the police car and my own, but the officer wrote me a reckless driving ticket along with it!”

Amy, whose house had caught on fire recently, pleaded with the officer, hoping she could escape the reckless driving ticket, but her attempts failed, creating an even more hostile opinion toward law enforcement in her.

It is hard to understand a teenager who would think they could get off scott free after driving into a police car, but for many teenagers, they think of requests like this as a chance to learn from their mistakes. When the police insist on punishing them, they feel victimized.

As for law enforcement, they can only hope to have taught juveniles a lesson they will carry throughout their adult lives — choices can have negative legal consequences.

It takes a village to raise a teen
And although teens may think this conflict is just between them and the police, Schlossmacher said it’s usually someone who knows the teens that tells the police about their illegal activity.

“I want to say that the arrests are due to good police work,” said Schlossmacher, “but that’s simply not the case; it is because of a concerned parent, friend, or some other informant that tells us of a party or suspicious activity.”

Schlossmacher is referring to the citywide confidential crime tip line where valuable information comes through each day.

“I cannot recall the last time I personally saw a drug deal take place,” said Schlossmacher, “but we are still able to make arrests because the large majority of people are good and don’t want to see others hurt.”

Do the teenagers take anything from their encounters? Not necessarily. But one thing Adam and Amy share with the 20 or so teenagers who brought down that fence at a party in Eden Prairie while fleeing police is the knowledge best summed up by rapper Young Jeezy: “Don’t get caught.”