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About The Siuslaw news. (Florence, Lane County, Or.) 1960-current | View Entire Issue (May 30, 2018)
6A | WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, 2018 | SIUSLAW NEWS RIDE ALONG from page 1A “If the indicator turns green, there’s no alcohol. If it turns an amber, then it’s .07 or below. If it turns red, then they have an approximate .10 blood alcohol content,” Bailey said. “Obvious- ly, it’s not specific enough to tell how much. It just shows traces of alcohol.” Just having the test was a good deterrent for students entering the prom. There had already been rumors of a youth refusing to come because they got word of the test. Other officers were checking the home address of the youth. Alcohol wasn’t the only thing Bailey was looking for that night. “Who knows what else we’ll pick up,” he said. “Minor in possession, alcohol, marijuana, tobacco. Those types of things. We’re also looking for furnish- ings. How do juveniles get alco- hol?” Bailey set a close eye on the celebrating high schoolers. For the most part, he stayed by the entrance, avoiding the pounding musical bass of the dance floor. Instead, he opted for a quieter spot where he could seek out suspicious behavior. Bailey described what he looked for when it comes to in- toxication. “There’s the smell of the alco- holic beverage that emits when someone has been drinking,” he said. “You’ve got a stumble, slurred speech, red eyes. Usually people are pretty good at picking out people who are intoxicated. Surprisingly, the smell that emits from someone is one of the big indicators for me when I’m looking for intoxicants.” He pointed to the dance room. “It’s easier to spot it out here than it would be in there in that chaos.” If any of the youth had been found intoxicated, Bailey would assess the situation, possibly handing out a Minor in Posses- sion (MIP), which would re- quire the youth to take diversion classes through Youth Services, a division of Lane County. Di- version classes teach the dan- gers of underage drinking, but also gives its students hope. The course helps youth expunge the MIP from their record when they turn 18. If Bailey suspected a youth of being intoxicated, he planned to quietly pull them to the side. “We’re not trying to make a huge scene out of it,” he said. “I would take them to the side, I would check their eyes for hor- izontal gaze. But I don’t want to bother them. I’m here to do my thing. They’re here to have fun, you know? For the most part, the students have been pretty interactive with what we had so far.” The prom was considered a success. The kids were safe, they had a good time and there was no intoxication from what Bailey could see. But inside the prom, which was monitored by a large number of school officials and volunteers, wasn’t the big concern for the night. That would be the house par- ties that were planned afterward, and Bailey had gotten a line on two of them — one inside city limits, one outside. Bailey’s job for the evening was to check these parties, and search the rest of the region for any signs of un- derage drinking. ‘The cops are out’ So how do the officials get word of such parties? “Students talking to other stu- dents,” Bailey said. “The infor- mation hotline, you know. The majority of our tips are probably not true, and we probably won’t find anything.” But trying is important. The schools made sure that youth knew the police would be out on patrol that night. “It’s proactive policing,” Bai- ley explained. “It’s to make people think twice. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t, maybe I need to come up with an alternate plan right now, because the police are go- ing to be out and I don’t want to get in trouble.’ It will make peo- ple think twice. If we stopped something, then we did our job.” Good choices are what Bailey and the rest of the officers are trying to instill. Catching youth drinking before it becomes a problem is key to that. “This could be something that would be a starting point for somebody,” he said. “They decide they really like alcohol. But they don’t know themselves, especially when they’re intoxi- cated. They think they’re okay to drive. That kid hops in a car, drives somewhere, kills them- selves or others. The aftermath effects of that can be devastat- ing.” In a small community like the Siuslaw region, which only has Siuslaw and Mapleton school districts, aftereffects from ac- cidents can impact students for years to come. Many of the youth Bailey de- scribed are only intermittent drinkers, first-time offenders or kids who occasionally drink socially. “For 99 percent of the time, you’re dealing with the one per- cent, those kids that are habitu- al (drinkers). They drink all the time, and we have numerous MIPs on them. For the most part, we have good youth here. It’s the same thing with adults — 99 percent of the time, we’re dealing with the one percent. You do have a sprinkling here and there with new individ- uals, but for the most part it’s the same people over and over again. That’s another reason it’s important that we start putting MIP citations in, because we get them into the system as soon as possible before they become that one percent.” As Bailey was explaining this, he noticed a car with two prom goers in it, seeming to head toward the location of the par- ty within the city limits. It ap- peared the drivers knew Bailey was following them, so he drove in a different direction. Merry- man followed in his own patrol car. Bailey reached the street the house was on, pulled a switch, and all the lights on the car turned off. It allowed him to slowly drive up toward the house without anyone knowing the car was running. He and Merryman parked and got out of their cars, walk- ing up to house. All the lights had been turned off. Then, the car with the prom goers showed up. It stopped just down the street, looking at Bailey and Merryman as they walked around. The car took off. “You know how many kids right now got the mass text of, ‘The cops are out?’” Bailey asked. “We may have just done our job right there.” Whether or not the city house was a good location for a prom party, the house outside city limits also seemed like a ESTATE SALE JUNE 1ST & 2ND FRI-SAT 9am-3pm Greentrees East Nice queen size beds, couch, hutch, kitchen table w/chairs, vintage dressers, trunks, desks, Diorama Community Buildings for train sets & vegetation, Oakley goggles, airbrush w/compressor, electric lawnmower, weed eaters, tools, puzzles, kitchen items, train pictures, washer/dryer & much more. Check out craigslist and Facebook for photos. Estate Sale prepared by Linda Wilcox. 541-999-0877. IDYLEWOOD- 4985 Gullsettle Ct. Fri/Sat 9am-3pm Fishing, backpacking, tools, sport clothing, DVD’s, books, audio books, vintage stereo, art supplies, gun cases. probable spot. Bailey drove out of town and worked his way up through forested trees to a secluded neighborhood. Like before, he switched off the car’s lights and silently drove up to the house. Empty. Not a single light in the window, not a car in the driveway. Bailey wondered if they had come too early. But just as Bailey turned out of the neighborhood and out on the highway, it happened. Three cars packed to the gills with prom goers turned onto the road. Bailey stopped his car for a moment, as did the teenagers. See RIDE ALONG page 7A Garage/Moving Sale Fri. 8am-4pm Sat. 9am-3pm 1930 32nd Street (corner of Spruce & 32nd) 2X-3X clothing, shoes, antiques, jewelry, books, DVD’s, kitchen items, patio furniture, lots of misc. Weather permitting. Sat. 6/2 9am-3pm Ocean Dunes Estates Neighborhood garage sale off Munsel Lake Rd. 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