I'm always a little amazed that the age for buying booze in the states is 21.<p>Wait, am I understanding this correctly? At the age of 20 she's not allowed to buy alcohol but could have already owned a gun for 2 years?<p>The world is a funny old place.
In what sense was pulling a gun justified even if she <i>was</i> holding a 12-pack of beer? "Alcohol Beverage Control" agents? Is this a repost from 1927?
I've had a similar thing happen to me (I live in Croatia). It happened a few years back so some details are hazy now. It was a rainy evening and I was picking up my brother and we were to drive home for the weekend. His girlfriend was also with him. So, I pick them up and drive to this small parking space to turn the car around. The moment I circled the car around the parking, an unmarked Octavia reverses in front of me, with two bald guys in sport jackets running towards me. I didn't know how to react, in a second or two all sorts of scenarios went thorough my mind. Were they robbers? Then I saw them moving their hands towards their hips. Going for guns? Should I put the car in reverse and try to escape? They pulled out what looked like badges and started yelling to turn off the engine and step out. I still believe t was a leap of faith on my part, trusting them to be the police and I'm afraid of what might've happened if I acted differently. They asked us to empty our pockets, patted us, searched the car and just left, no explanation, no sorry, nothing. They didn't search the girl, I guess it's against the law or something. My brother jokes how one of the officers persistently asked him if he had something in his pants, and all he thought was "yeah, shit, because I almost shat myself". I suppose they were on a stakeout, probably looking for narcotics dealers or something, who knows. It wasn't a pleasant experience at all.
>> "undercover agents from the state's Alcohol Beverage Control"<p>>> " One jumped on the hood of her SUV; another pulled out a gun"<p>What The F*ck America?
<i>"You don't know all the facts until you complete the investigation,"</i>.<p>Man, that is blind faith in so many untrustworthy sources (remember '41 shots?') that I am trying to recover from the shock. Poor girl.<p>Seven people. I say: seven. One, two three, four, five, six, seven. They would have scared everything out of me.
Looks like they have been deluged with complaints. They have posted something on Facebook:<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/virginia-department-of-alcoholic-beverage-control/clarifying-abcs-involvement-in-april-11-charlottesville-incident/10151739068971788" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/notes/virginia-department-of-alcoho...</a>
Usual stuff, she will have to plead guilty to get suspended sentence. Then permanent record and ruined life. Officers will get bonus points and salary increase. Justice always wins!<p>Update: apparently charges were dropped
Important as these stories are to get out, really they are handled by other news outlets quite well.<p>Exactly what one learns from one incident, in one state, in one country is hard to say.<p>The story has no round up of a greater meaning other than the one incident which leads the reader without any cause and effect.<p>Is this American budgets cuts? Is this the problem with counties having to much power? Is this the militarisation of the police force? What is the trend here if any?<p>As per news is bad for you, I think this is one of them. High stress, low information.
Are police even allowed to do this if they're not in uniform?<p>I completely understand their reaction to get away when a group of people suddenly draw their guns and try to force you to get out of the car...
So, when I was 17, I bought some cases of beer. When I came out of the supermarket (with the beer visible in my cart), I walked by some (uniformed and probably armed) police officers. I greeted them and they wished me a nice weekend. Because in Germany, police officers are usually quite polite.
The whole situation is ridiculous but I'm especially interested in this bit:<p><i>"They were showing unidentifiable badges after they approached us, but we became frightened, as they were not in anything close to a uniform"</i><p>This happened to me when I was travelling in Europe, a cop without a uniform approached to me on the train somewhere between Netherlands and Germany and asked me for my ID. I asked for his ID, he flashed something (obviously I had no freaking idea whether it was legit, no idea what was even written on it since I don't know the language).<p>What do you do in this case? Do you obey or challenge more? Isn't that dangerous as anyone can flash some random / fake badge and cause you to go with them, gather private information or worse?
When are Americans going to see this as essentially an infringement of their rights as adults? Yes their are adults.<p>At the age of 20 Americans are old enough to join the army and engage in combat duty, drive, run bank accounts, be tried as adults and even be sentenced to death.
And yet drinking at the age 20 is perceived as an imprisonable offence, and law enforcement officers consider it reason to arrest adults because of that?<p>Frankly Americans tolerate too much nonsense from their corrupt and hypocritical law makers.<p>It seems to be one the laws retained to enable their fascist state to criminalize their citizens so they can have something to hold over them.
It will be nice to take my son down the pub on his 18th, buy him a nice cold beer, congratulate him on reaching adulthood and give thanks that we don't live in a backwood shithole like the USA.
To serve and annoy. Thanks for keeping our city safe from the dangerous and out of control 20 year-old college females. They are quite the scourge on our modern surburbias.
These days, as an anarcho capitalist, I just feel like the entire world is continuously handing me ammunition to justify my position, and I have had plenty for years.<p>Both amusing and sad.
<a href="http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/bottled-water-purchase-leads-to-night-in-jail-for-uva/article_b5ab5f62-df9b-11e2-81c4-0019bb30f31a.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/bottled-water-purchase-lea...</a><p>There's the original article - that hasn't been edited by deleting text and making later references to it nonsensical.
What about being arrested for filming the police and getting your dog shot dead after getting out of the car and lunging at an officer?<p><a href="http://reason.com/blog/2013/07/01/get-cuffed-for-filming-police-your-dog-g" rel="nofollow">http://reason.com/blog/2013/07/01/get-cuffed-for-filming-pol...</a>
"One jumped on the hood of her SUV; another pulled out a gun": Do the girls deserve such treatment just because the police suspected they possess alcohol? Do you need firearms to handle such situation? US looks more and more like a police state.
It sounds like something else is at play here. You wouldn't typically send a full assault team to grab underage drinkers.<p>If you were looking for a known fugitive/dangerous suspect that happens to frequent a grocery store for beer on the other hand...
There's something very odd about the Virginian Department of Alcohol Beverage Control. They seem to arrest people for carrying water, but they hold alcohol tasting sessions in their government owned liquor shops.
As someone who went to UVA, this isn't entirely surprising, but it still saddens me. The cops there are largely bored, and they put too much emphasis on the state sanctioned ABC monopoly over liquor.
She was lucky she wasn't male and black. Because if she were, they'd probably shoot him, and then say "they thought he was drawing a weapon...as he fled".<p>Not like it hasn't happen exactly like that before. There was even a video of it online. I think if more tourists knew stuff like this is happening in America, they'd stay the hell away from it.
My son's a cop. He said what I was thinking. There is far more going on here than what the story states and the reporter is not asking the right questions or the agents can't say. In either case, the girl got caught up in something bigger than the writer says by mistake.<p>Nothing to see here. Move on.
I don't know if there is a study or theory to support this, but it seems that the longer any two opposing sides (like the police and criminals) face each other, the stronger is the influence of one over the other.<p>To a point when both sides have picked up significant good/bad behavior from each other. And then the very same police looks both aggressive and distasteful to the rest of us - i.e those who were not in the loop ever.<p>Wait, quantum entanglement?