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GCASA and Sheriff's Office message: Don't host underage drinking parties

By Howard B. Owens

Found this video on GCASA's blog.

In another item, there's also this:

GCASA held the annual DWI Victim Impact Panel Recognition Dinner on Friday, June 19, 2009 at Bohn's restaurant in Batavia, NY. At that dinner, Genesee County Sheriff's Deputy Howard J. Carlson was honored for his exeptional service having made 22 DWI arrests in 2008 with a 98% conviction rate.

New York State Trooper, Eric J. Daigler was also honored. He had 19 DWI arrests.

Fred GUNDELL

i remember when I graduated from H.S. way back in 1964. It was legal to drink at 18 then. I remember several of my classmates drinking. But I do not remember any unusual problems, nor do I remember any driving while intoxicated. I of course was not at All parties, and can not speak for everyone. But it seems to me that stricter law enforcement is not the total answer. Higer ages on drinking is not the total answer. Heck I know folks 50 years old that shouldn't be drinking. I do know that it was great when I got home on leave from to be able to go out with my dad and have a cold one.(or two)
It also appears to me after all these warnings, all these arests, raising the drinking age, and lowering the BAC level, that we are not making much headway. I submit that if the drinking age was 30 and the BAC level for driving was zero, that we would still have the problems we have now.
The drinking age in Canada is 19, and lower in many other countries. Our problem is cultural. It is in raising our kids to respect themselves and others. To respect alcohol, and their priviledge of driving. To know the difference between right and wrong. Much of this stuff is missing today. As noted in the sportsmanship article posted today. Thanks

Jun 29, 2009, 8:49am Permalink
Chelsea O'Brien

While I understand driving while intoxicated is not good and it endangers many other people's lives, but should we be lauding someone who has these "honorable" numbers and percentages. I also realize drinking and driving is a choice, and being killed by one is not necessarily a choice.

BUT! Does someone with an .082 deserve to have their life ruined? It is such an arbitrary number and is difficult to guess what a BAC is. I can drink 1 and have a higher BAC count than other people who have had 1. What happened to being able to make mistakes?

And then how is it a 98% conviction rate? Generally if you're arrested for DWI you have A) not passed some type of sobriety test or B) refused to take one. If you're going to arrest someone, put it on the police blotter, and ruin a person's name you had dang well better know that person is going to be convicted.

Jun 29, 2009, 9:13am Permalink
C D

Chelsea, so you're saying everyone should be completely ignorant to the alleged crimes people in Batavia and surrounding towns are committing?

Great logic there.

Jun 29, 2009, 11:06am Permalink
Peter O'Brien

Personally I don't like names on police blotters either.

Innocent until proven guilty may exist in courts but thanks to the readily available news it is seldom the case in the court of public opinion. Back in the previous centuries that some something easily fixed by a move to a new town. But now thanks to the internet, escaping a bum rap that has been put on the internet is next to impossible.

More and more employers are googling peoples names before interviews. Some like me are lucky and have a common name. Others don't have that.

Take a look at the Duke Lacrosse rape case. The three boys involved were heavily slandered for something they never did. It never went to trial and the new DA even said the former DA needed to apologize. Their teachers demanded they be removed from school before there was a conviction as well. It was absurd. But now their names are easily googled and the controversy has been document and easily found by potential employers who may not believe the new D.A.'s findings. They will be forever affected by an allegation that was found to be false.

Jun 29, 2009, 11:16am Permalink
Richard Gahagan

So GCASA gives awards to the police officers that give them the most business. Atta boy go out there and get us so more victims so we can justify why we even exist. What a racket. If they have their way every last one of ya will be in $treatment$

Jun 29, 2009, 12:02pm Permalink
Chelsea O'Brien

Ok Chris, how's this for an example...

You're driving down Oak desperately trying to avoid potholes. A police officer comes up behind you, thinks you're swerving, and pulls you over. He asks if you've been drinking, you say no, when he insists on a breathalyzer test you refuse out of pride.

The next morning your name is in the police blotter for resisting arrest and for DWI. All you did was try to keep from hitting too many potholes, and the judge finds you innocent. How would you feel with your name posted here, with all of your neighbors and friends knowing that you were arrested (and not knowing you were found innocent)?

But I'm sure you've never made a mistake in your life.

Jun 29, 2009, 1:28pm Permalink
Peter O'Brien

I just watched this video because You tube is blocked at work. Any neighbor that is that nosey to look in your windows and then call the cops on you deserves to sued for invasion of privacy (at least until Roe v Wade is overturned and this so called right to privacy is removed).

Jun 29, 2009, 11:02pm Permalink
C D

I'd explain the truth. I could really care less what people assume about me, whether it's true are not.

I've been dealing with it after my first year of college here. A year later, people still are still assuming and talking.

Jun 30, 2009, 3:52am Permalink
Howard B. Owens

Wayne, and then the hamburger eaters, and then the cigarette smokers, and then the in-car shavers and the lipstick users, and then the people talking to the seat next to them, and the mothers scolding the children in the back seat, and the people with dogs in their cars ... let's be sure to regulate every aspect of our lives.

Jun 30, 2009, 7:09am Permalink
Howard B. Owens

@ Andrew: "By that I take it your referring to the "right to privacy" that is nowhere to be found in the Constitution? "

Except, of course, in the Fourth Amendment.

Jun 30, 2009, 7:11am Permalink
Peter O'Brien

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

That is different than a right to privacy. This is a direct law that the government cannot interfere with your life without probable cause. It has nothing to do with whether fetus murder is legal or not.

I find it very unreasonable for the police to be able to enter my home and then arrest me based an a tip from a neighbor without a warrant.

Jun 30, 2009, 7:17am Permalink
Howard B. Owens

Whether there is a "right to privacy" in the Constitution and whether Roe v. Wade was correctly decided on "right to privacy" and/or other grounds or completely separate subjects.

To say there is no right to privacy in the Constitution defies logic. The Fourth Amendment is pretty clear -- the government cannot intrude on my person, nor any aspect of my person (such my property) without due process of the law. That is clearly an enumerated right to privacy. The government doesn't get to know what goes on in my mind, in my house, in my car, etc. without probable cause and due process.

And that's certainly the way it should be.

Jun 30, 2009, 8:07am Permalink
Howard B. Owens

Roe v. Wade did not create the right to privacy. It may have been the first case to use that term, but the right to privacy existed on the day the Fourth Amendment was ratified. The actual phrase doesn't have to exist for the concept to exist.

I only stress this point because I think conservatives do us all a disservice when they take a dismissive attitude toward privacy rights. The right to privacy is every bit as important as the right to free speech, and since both find their basis in our natural freedom to be master of our own thoughts, secure in our ability to make up our own minds and draw our own conclusions, then I find these rights quite vital indeed.

Jun 30, 2009, 8:23am Permalink

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