You know, if I were in charge of that county's government, I would be doing everything in my power to make this suit go away. Even if they win, they lose; it seems unquestioned that the threat was made and it's certainly unquestioned that the young man died because he thought the threat was made. And I'm baffled as to how "parental overtones" would diminish one's expectations of privacy, even if the right of the sheriff to act as parent is conceded (and I can't imagine that any sheriff's department really wants that responsibility). If the officer said something to the parents about the underage drinking, that's one thing -- they were caught actually breaking the law in that situation -- but he certainly had no right to say one word to anyone about their sexuality, nor to badger them in the first place into admitting that they were there to have sex.
Of course, in the ideal world, if he were so misguided as to make that threat, the ideal response would be "Yeah? So?" But this isn't the ideal world, is it?
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
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12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!