Police keeping a close eye on proms

Police keeping a close eye on proms

By IAN C. STOREY
Record-Eagle staff writer


TRAVERSE CITY - High school students aren't the only ones gearing up for prom season, as city officers are dusting off their plain-clothes to patrol area proms and parties in an attempt to prevent underage drinking.
Traverse City police Sgt. Brian Heffner said a Michigan Office of Highway Safety Planning grant meant to deter underage drinking will be used to add patrols for area proms and graduation parties.
Traverse City Central High School's prom is tonight, while West Senior High's soiree is scheduled for next weekend.
"We will have our normal patrols out, but in addition there will be plainclothes officers to enforce underage drinking laws," said Heffner. "Now that it is prom season, graduation and senior party time, we will have officers working in and around those proms and parties where youths may be consuming alcohol."
Heffner said city police are also working in conjunction with stores in the Traverse City area to ensure minors are not using fake identification to buy alcohol or having adults buy for them.
Heffner said no citations for minors in possession of alcohol were issued last year during a similar enforcement exercise.


The Story above was in the Traverse City Record Eagle.

When and if I have kids I will not want cops being the ones keeping an eye on them at a school event. That would be my job as a parent, not the states, not my governments. Have we hired the police to act as babysittes when we don't want to do it? We want the police to be the ones that are rearing our children? We send the police in there to spy on our kids, to see what they are doing, what they are saying while we are not around. Are we so paranoid that we need to have agents, the same people that decided a guy who bought a pair of their pants at a thrift store needed to give up, watching our children? Spys intermingling within the kids on an evening that is probably awkward enough as it is, all this pressure to make this night significant some how, but then to have cops hiding in your midst. What does that teach them? Go have fun, but we are watching you? If you were 17 would you even want to go to an event that had "plainsclothes officers to enforce underage drinking" wandering around the event? I think that I would be finding some friends and heading out to some beach somewhere and having a fire and enjoying that, knowing that most of the cops are hanging around the prom.
I wonder how many kids go to the prom?