Bottled-water purchase leads to night in jail for UVa student

[BobStackFan4Life]

Pulling a gun on a kid because you think they're buying a case of beer and are underaged? WTF?

A group of state Alcoholic Beverage Control agents clad in plainclothes approached her, suspecting the blue carton of LaCroix sparkling water to be a 12-pack of beer. Police say one of the agents jumped on the hood of her car. She says one drew a gun. Unsure of who they were, Daly tried to flee the darkened parking lot.

"They were showing unidentifiable badges after they approached us, but we became frightened, as they were not in anything close to a uniform," she recalled Thursday in a written account of the April 11 incident.

"I couldn't put my windows down unless I started my car, and when I started my car they began yelling to not move the car, not to start the car. They began trying to break the windows. My roommates and I were ... terrified," Daly stated.

Prosecutors say she apologized profusely when she realized who the agents were. But that wasn't good enough for ABC agents, who charged her with three felonies. Prosecutors withdrew those charges Thursday in Charlottesville General District Court, but Daly still can't understand why she sat in jail.

Agents charged Daly with two counts of assaulting a law enforcement officer and one count of eluding police, all Class 6 felonies carrying a maximum penalty of five years in prison and $2,500 in fines per offense.

Chapman stood by the agents' decision to file charges, citing faith in a process that yielded an appropriate resolution.

"You don't know all the facts until you complete the investigation," he said.

http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/bottled-water-purchase-leads-to-night-in-jail-for-uva/article_b5ab5f62-df9b-11e2-81c4-0019bb30f31a.html

 

[DeaconCav06]

ABC is the worst. That is so stupid.

 

[lbE08]

damn. glad they're dismissing the charges, i would have done the exact same thing.

 

[qcdeac]

Based on that article, I hope those fuckers lose their job. You don't pull a gun on a college student for buying beer at Harris Teeter. What the fuck?

 

[tau06]

Sounds like ALE in NC. F em all.

 

[CHillDeac]

Sounds like ALE in NC. F em all.

They've been hitting the bars pretty hard here in Chapel Hill recently, strange considering that most of the students are gone right now. Pretty darn easy to spot them when they come in.

 

[smallbigtall]

Based on that article, I hope those fuckers lose their job. You don't pull a gun on a college student for buying beer at Harris Teeter. What the fuck?

Seriously. If you can't tell the difference between a case of beer and some fucking water, you don't deserve a job at all, not to mention with the ABC. Assholes.

 

[deacphan]

surprised MR. DARDEN didn't step in to save her.

 

[DeaconCav06]

Her lawyer is the guy that defended George Hughley.

 

[ChaosDeac]

ALE/ABC cops are crazy. Trying to pray on college students, most who aren't doing anything wrong.

One of my fraternity brothers at Wake told me the following story of his encounter with ALE (cannot verify its true but have no reason to doubt him). He was just outside Polo Hall, when he saw some person lying on the ground. He walked over to the person and asked if they needed help. They didn't respond, so he kept trying to figure out if the person was alright. After a minute or two, the person turns over and says "got you" then 3 or 4 ALE agents come out from hiding and start interrogating him about whether he had been drinking and asking all sorts of crazy questions (mind you he was on private WFU property, and he was 21). Anyways, I forget what happened to him but I think they let him off with a warning even though he did nothing wrong.

Another one pulled over a fellow brother who bought booze for a brother only function. Grocery store told him what he could legally purchase was X cases, he bought less than that amount. Turns out the law actually permitted less than what he bought and ALE ending up charging him with a misdemeanor for unlawful carrying or intent to distribute. Seriously, that's what they aim to do? Catch people in technicalities?

Then another one was one Senior Fifth Day, where the game was a noon kick off. We had bottles of OJ because it was 9 or 10 am. It was unopened and still sealed. Some lady ALE agent says she has to test it to make sure no liquor is in it, even though we show the seal is not broken. Anyways, like 1/3 of the bottle was missing when she returned it and miraculously a couple ALE agents seemed to be drinking OJ after that point.

 

[DeacLaw05]

Most ALE enforcement officers seem to carry on their business in the perpetual belief that the 18th Amendment is still fully in effect. If you're looking for government agencies to slash, that would be a good one to start with.

 

[PhDeac]

Can anybody explain why ALE has a presence at tailgates and campus parties instead of sticking with the big crimes and leaving the little ones to the city and/or campus?

 

[tigerswood]

Can anybody explain why ALE has a presence at tailgates and campus parties instead of sticking with the big crimes and leaving the little ones to the city and/or campus?

ALE luckily has no presence on campus, or at least they didn't when I was there. They were awful at tailgates, but in 2009 they seemed to really ease off and didn't bother students as much. I think Wake made some sort of agreement with them, and they backed off. Hopefully it hasn't gotten bad again, but I wouldn't be surprised if it has.

Also, the craziest thing to me is that assault rifles were standard issue for many ALE officers until recently (may still be). The only reason this came out was because a few went missing/were stolen a couple years back. ALE is pure scum and should be disbanded immediately. Hopefully McCory will take care of it, but it seems like the government doesn't really care.

 

[deaconson]

Agreed. VA ABC are just awful. Talk about a bunch of people with inferiority complex.

 

[RJKarl]

If the agents scratched her hood when he jumped on it, she should get some new paint.

 

[DeaconCav06]

Assault rifles sort of make sense in the sense that a large part of their job is investigating illegal stills.

Of course, I think that's a big ass waste of time and money too. Nothing wrong with passing around the jar every now and again.

 

[94Deac]

Based on that article, I hope those fuckers lose their job. You don't pull a gun on a college student for buying beer at Harris Teeter. What the fuck?

And on what fucking planet do those gaudy, pastel LaCroix labels even remotely look like beer?

 

[HeavyPetter]

Obviously that's really no excuse since ALE agents are well trained professionals.

 

[94Deac]

From 100 yards you can EASILY spot the difference. I mean, they're not even close shades of the same color.

 

[HeavyPetter]

To someone with perfect eyesight like you maybe. But these crooked beer companies are always changing their packaging as a way to attract underage customers. 99.87% of 12-packs sold at a grocery store are beer. Best to pull out the AR-15 first and verify contents later.