Community Corner

Sorry About Your Ping Pong Table, Mrs. Brown -- Junior's Friends Thought It Was a Trampoline

Youthful hormones. The end of summer. The looming start of another school year -- and a little alcohol kept things jumping for Moraga police Monday night.

 

Moraga police followed a trail of beer and beverage containers like Hansel's breadcrumbs and stumbled upon a full-blown "end of summer" party, and several inebriated young people, at a home in the southern part of town late Monday.

Officers suspected something was up when they stopped a car with two Lafayette residents aboard travelling north on Moraga Road just past Corliss Drive at 11:53 p.m. and questioned the 16-year-old female driver (who was sober) as well as her 16-year-old male passenger (who was not).

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The male half of the partnership was heavily intoxicated and vomiting, police said. After citing the driver for speeding (53mph in a 35mph zone) police released the youths to their parents and, following a telltale trail of staggering kids and jettisoned beverage containers, backtracked to a home on Corte Maria, which apparently was without parental supervision.

An officer approaching the residence touched off a minor exodus as kids fled the area in all directions, prompting a call from a neighbor complaining that her ping pong table was destroyed by kids jumping her fence in their haste to get away. The officer then approached two youths sitting in a car parked in an adjacent driveway, asking the 16-year-old Lafayette resident behind the wheel to walk back to the officer's patrol car for a sobriety test -- only to have the driver flee on foot, leaving the officer standing with his car keys and driver's license.

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The teen later returned to the scene, where he was released to a sober adult, but Moraga police contacted the owner of the home (away on vacation) and told the juvenile party host that the festivities were over for the evening.


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