Posted on 07/01/2013 8:12:44 PM PDT by Drango
Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control officials said the current review of a University of Virginia student's arrest after agents mistook a crate of LaCroix sparkling water for beer is the second look agency supervisors have taken at the case.
ABC earlier this year found no wrongdoing in the agents' encounter with three sorority women who panicked at the sight of a half-dozen undercover officers in plainclothes. One of the agents unholstered his weapon during the April 11 incident and held it at the "ready" position, but did not point it at anyone, according to ABC.
"Because of the public outcry, they're reviewing the facts of the case again to make sure nothing happened," said agency spokeswoman Maureen Haney.
Elizabeth Daly, 20, was charged with felony eluding police and two counts of felony assault of a police officer after her SUV "grazed" two ABC agents as she attempted to drive away to a police station. Those charges, which carry a maximum combined sentence of 15 years in prison, were dropped last week, but the case has fueled outrage that showed no sign of abating Monday.
"The governor is aware of this issue," Bob McDonnell's spokesman, Tucker Martin, stated in an email. "The secretary of public safety has spoken with ABC officials and is monitoring the matter closely ... [she] is awaiting the conclusions of their review."
People besieged ABC's Richmond headquarters with phone calls and emails Monday, asking how a late-night trip to buy cookie dough and ice cream for a sorority philanthropy event turned into an overnight stay at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail for Daly, who has no criminal record and says she has never consumed alcohol.
"They're calling the governor's office, they're calling our public affairs office, they're calling every office," Haney said. "We're hearing about it on Twitter, they're using our website's email form, they're commenting on our Facebook."
A statement ABC issued on Facebook about the incident had garnered more than 450 comments by Monday night. Users posted links to contact information for ABC board members and applauded the women for being vigilant. McDonnell's office fielded about 30 emails from constituents sounding off about the arrest by Monday afternoon, Martin said.
Media swarmed the Daly family's Henrico County home over the weekend when news of her arrest and exoneration went viral. As Richmond outlets knocked on the family's front door, stories about the incident began popping up on the Huffington Post, Fox News, the Drudge Report and Gawker.
Daly's father, Jeff Daly, said the family hunkered down and forwarded interview requests from The Washington Post and talk show hosts Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh to his daughter's Charlottesville-based attorney, Francis McQ. Lawrence.
Jeff Daly said well-wishers have encouraged the family to file a formal complaint with the ABC or a civil suit, but he was unsure Monday how they will proceed.
"For the time being, we've just chosen to stay out of the limelight and let Elizabeth recover from all of this," he said in a phone interview. "As a family, we're just trying to put this all behind us for now."
Elizabeth Daly said she and her friends were "terrified" when a man and woman in street clothes began knocking on her car windows in the darkened Harris Teeter parking lot. Their badges were unidentifiable, she said in a written statement after her court date Thursday.
When Daly slipped her keys into the ignition to crack the windows, a male agent yanked at the door handle, banged on the window and yelled at the women to exit the vehicle, said Daly's front-seat passenger, who asked not to be identified.
She was on edge after a night spent listening to sexual assault survivors tell their stories at a Take Back the Night event on UVa Grounds and said she had already noticed the man staring at her and her friends as they walked to their car in the back of the parking lot carrying supplies for an Alzheimer's Association benefit.
When he began to yell, other men positioned themselves around the car and the woman yelled at Daly to "go, go go," court records state. One drew a gun. Another jumped onto the hood of the car as Daly and her friends dialed 911 to report the incident, according to the records. The women apologized repeatedly minutes later when they stopped for a car with lights and sirens on, prosecutors said.
Daly's passenger said she was handcuffed without explanation and did not get one until a Charlottesville police officer arrived.
"He was calm, professional, and treated me with respect," she stated.
"He helped me to the curb so that I could sit and calm down. He said to us that ABC officers have all the rights of regular officers, and then finally it became clear that these were ABC officers."
Haney said she could not say whether any of the agents involved in the incident had been placed on administrative leave during the review, because it is a "personnel matter."
"No one is calling this an investigation," she said, of the review. Haney could not say whether the same supervisors who conducted the first review would be leading the second. "The whole agency is reviewing the matter."
Others arrested during the two-day enforcement operation in April described feeling taken aback when teams of two or three agents approached them as they were getting into their vehicles. None of the half-dozen people interviewed Monday reported seeing weapons drawn. The agents made about 10 arrests that Thursday and Friday, according to court records.
Haney could not say whether it was unusual for a half-dozen agents to focus on a single shopping center parking lot. Virginia ABC employs about 120 special agents, she said.
I find the overkill that has become typically SOP by LE, even dealing with non-violent crime as particularly threatening to a society that pays them to protect and serve, not run ram-shod.
The public is being treated as a threat when it isn’t. Overreaction such as breaking down doors in the middle of the night (sometimes at wrong addresses) by SWAT over non-violent offenses creates an unnecessary threat to the public and cops.
Those who cross over the line need to be held accountable.
I must sadly say you are correct. As written, this is embarrassing and inexcusable. You should NEVER draw your weapon like this for any non-threat situation, especially a potential misdemeanor crime of underage consumption with a young person.
Even if it had been beer, is beer illegal? How would they have known if she was underage?
There is no rational justification for this cop-thuggism.
Young women = easy targets in their minds.
Maybe they also had a carton of smokes?
Whoa! Good thing it wasn't like, underage smoking, or something.
(While I always regarded Virginia's alcohol laws as a tad, well, different, this seems over the top to me.) You used to be able to drink beer and wine there at 18.
Something tells me they wouldn’t be acting that way on the other side of town, dealing with a different demographic.
Bunch of D-Bags with guns and badges, and some college kids. Try that crap on the South side of Chicago or some other lovely neighborhood.
Thanks for the update. VA Alcoholic Beverage Control agents are out of control. I added the Keyword “virginiaabc” to the various articles posted here on this incident so far.
You can thank the MADD harpies for legislation that strong armed the states into taking the drinking age to 21.
“Even if it had been beer, is beer illegal? How would they have known if she was underage?”
Would one of those enterprising “agents” have noticed the cashier did not check for an ID? Or do people in VA get ID’d when buying water?
Maybe the “agents” were having their own little party out in the parking lot and had to cover it up by scaring the crap out of law abiding citizens who might have seen them.
With all the current surveillance and monitoring information available, I wonder how much pressure is being brought against the family to drop the matter or they will be treated as enemies of the state? The behavior of the agents could have easily ended in the murder of the girls or some of the agents being run over. Were these girls targeted because they were not members of any protected class?
Virginia Department of Alcohol Beverage Control
And here is their lame statement attempting to explain their agents' behavior.
Agents were working in the area, concentrating on underage possession enforcement. An agent observed what appeared to be an underage person in possession of what appeared to be a case of beer, and approached her to investigate. The agent identified herself as a police officer and was displaying her badge. Other agents did not join the incident until the subject refused to cooperate. Rather than comply with the officers' requests, the subject drove off, striking two officers. She was not arrested for possessing bottled water, but for running from police and striking two of them with a vehicle.
The agents were acting upon reasonable suspicion and this whole unfortunate incident could have been avoided had the occupants complied with law enforcement requests. We take all citizen complaints seriously and the matter is currently under review by the ABC Bureau of Law Enforcement.
Underage possession enforcement from the vantage point of a dark parking lot at 10 pm? These people should definitely not be trusted with guns If they see someone selling beer to someone underage they should call the police and let them handle it.
Not incompetence.
Sadism.
These officers clearly *enjoyed* attacking a group of young women.
Those who *enjoy* terrorizing the innocent will soon not be able to get their jollies from terror alone.
So long as people chalk up such incidents to incompetence, police departments will continue to *promise* to train their officers better, and incidents like this will continue and escalate.
good point
Elect a pro-2nd amendment, Constitutional sheriff in your county, and this crap will end real quick.
I’ve seen these sheriffs run off all manner of armed thugs, including fascist federal bureaucrats.
Need to make an arrest? Call the Sheriff.”
Exactly right. The problem is that too many ill-trained people in too many agencies have been given arrest powers. The ABC should have investigative powers (selling to under-aged kids, etc.) but at the point where an arrest needs to be be made, it should have to summon a uniformed LEO.
You used to be able to drink beer and wine there at 18.”
And in most other states until the federal government threatened them with loss of “federal” tax money unless they raised the legal alcohol possession/consumption age to 21.
>>You should NEVER draw your weapon like this for any non-threat situation, especially a potential misdemeanor crime
It isn’t about the actual crime. Most cops have become South Park’s Cartman. They strut around warning us that “You will respect mah authoritah!” Failure to do so results in gunfire, usually justified by claims that the cop was “struck by the vehicle” or “the suspect resisted arrest”.
The female ABC agent was apparently not in uniform when she approached the young woman who was carrying the case of sparkling water. Undercover work is always dangerous, and these dime-store ABC “agents” are going to get shot one night if/when they recklessly approach someone with a CWL.
They pulled a gun on her because they thought she had beer.
Interesting.
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