Rather Than Investigate Parents, Police Reach Out to Terra Nova

are reaching out to after a school dance was on Feb. 17 because many students, perhaps 15 or more, showed up apparently inebriated.

Captain Fernando Realyvasquez said that Pacifica Police Chief Jim Tasa and Captain Joe Spanheimer are setting up meetings with school administration to see what the department can do to prevent a similar incident in the future.

“First of all, we didn’t know there was a dance taking place that night,” Captain Realyvasquez said. “Maybe in the future we can have a couple officers at the dance in case something like this occurs.”

The department is opting for this solution, rather than making an investigation into where and how the students had been drinking and whether adults had been involved, because of the confusing nature of the scene Friday night and a lack of information.

“You see, it was kind of a convoluted situation when officers got there,” he said.

In trying to sort the scene out, the responding officers were confronted with apparently inebriated students with no seeming connection to each other, school faculty trying to organize the dance’s closure and parents showing up to take their kids home. Police decided it was best to turn over the three inebriated teens they did contact to their parents. 

“We can speculate all day and night on where they got the alcohol and come up with all of sorts of possibilities,” he said about looking into whether parents had played a hand in the teens’ drinking and whether they’d be subject to an administrative fine under Pacifica’s social host ordinance. “But as far as I know we don’t have that sort of information or know that drinking took place at a parent’s house.”

In the end, Captain Realyvasquez said, the department’s goal is prevention, not retribution.

“The intent of the juvenile justice system is to lead these kids in the right direction,” he said. “That doesn’t mean you arrest every one you catch drinking.”

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