News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
The father of an 18-year-old Sisters youth is planning legal action after his son was cited as a minor in possession of alcohol Saturday, March 29.
The 18-year-old was one of more than a dozen teens cited after police responded to a complaint about a party at 69430 Green Ridge Loop.
The young man was cited for MIP "by consumption," which means that police allegedly smelled alcohol on his breath and/or saw visible signs of intoxication. That is, by law, deemed sufficient cause for a citation.
According to the teen's father, the young man was a passenger in a car that police apparently suspected had been at the party.
The father told The Nugget that he had not asked his son directly if he had been at the party or if he had consumed any alcohol, but he said that the young man was not intoxicated.
According to the father, the young man offered to take a field sobriety or a breath test to prove that he hadn't been drinking, but police denied the request. He said that neither the driver of the vehicle nor the other passengers we
re cited.
The father said he expected to talk to an attorney on Monday, April 7, about legal action based on the assertion that his son was not allowed to demonstrate that he was innocent.
Sisters Police Lieutenant Rich Shawver told The Nugget that breath tests are not employed in MIP cases; they are used in drunk driving arrests where blood-alcohol content is at issue. Shawver said field sobriety tests are used to test for a driver's impairment, not to determine whether someone has consumed alcohol.
Deschutes County (and Sisters) has a "zero-tolerance" policy toward teen drinking. No amount of alcohol consumption is legal.
Deschutes County Sheriff's Deputy Rob Short responded to the complaint along with Sisters Police and others. Sho
rt requested that Sisters Police stop the vehicle in which the teen was a passenger.
Short told The Nugget that he had heard about some complaints in the community regarding the citations.
According to Short, he and the other officers responded to a legitimate complaint from a neighbor and that just breaking the party up was not an option.
"It's a waste of my time to go up there and bust the thing up without holding these people accountable for their actions," Short said.
As to the complaint of the 18-year-old passenger, Short said he had talked to the young man's father and explained the sheriff's department's policies and deputies' actions.
The deputy noted that teens cannot drive after consuming alcohol, period. The legal limit is 0.0 percent, Short said.
"I'm not going to tell everyone who has been drinking to get in their car and go home," Short said.
Teens caught drinking and driving face the loss of driving privileges.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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