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Students taught to think twice
Maze shows results of real-life decisions
WEB 0420 BI drunk kid 2
Law-enforcement officers watch as a Bradwell Institute student takes a field sobriety test while wearing beer goggles. - photo by Danielle Hipps

With blaring music, strobe lights and the ever-troublesome red Solo cups, several local high-school students partied hard this week — and they learned the consequences involved.

When law enforcement officers from the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office, Fort Stewart Military Police and the Georgia State Patrol walked into the “party” and cuffed a number of the students, the fun stopped and the learning began.

The fake party was the starting point for the first-ever Bradwell Institute Teen Maze, an event designed to introduce students to real-life consequences to decisions they will face in the future, according to 10th-grade counselor Brandi Helton.

“This is a safe environment where they can see the possible effects of bad decision-making,” she said. “They can be put in risky situations, but yet they’re safe — and if they make a bad choice, it’s not something that’s going to follow them the rest of their lives; once they exit the maze, then it’s over.”

After the “party,” the arrested students were fingerprinted and booked in jail before seeing a judge, who ordered them to pay fines, perform community service and attend counseling for drug- and alcohol-related offenses.

Those who were not arrested randomly were issued two “life experiences,” which included risky sexual behavior, drug addictions, “sexting” and alcohol poisoning. Consequences for the actions included pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, failure to graduate, loss of scholarships and even death.

“There’s not one scenario that the kids can draw that is not something that they are not familiar with,” Helton said.
Graduation coach Lea Bailey said the event also reminds students that some behaviors they think are innocent can have serious repercussions.

“I think they don’t really think about some of these things being dangerous,” Bailey said. “Like taking a picture of somebody flashing at a party — because they’re all friends there — or texting, because it seems like just a text.”

Helton learned about the idea through her sister, who serves as the operations director for Bulloch County Communities in Schools, where employees created the program about two years ago in Statesboro high schools.  

The event was open to seniors and sophomores because freshmen and juniors already have similar programming, Bailey said. The guidance office intends to make the maze an annual program, though doing so requires a team of 30-40 volunteers.

Senior Amanda Fay was among a handful of students in her “party” to be cuffed and escorted out of the room. She was slapped with more than $2,800 in fines for hosting the party, putting others in danger and having an open container.

“I thought it was really good just for the fact that these kids may not always have the chance to go to parties and stuff like that, but if they go when they’re in college, … they realize the repercussions of it now,” Fay said.

Her penalties also included 50 hours of community service and six months of substance-abuse treatment. And just to make the experience more realistic, those arrested were forced to wear disorienting beer goggles as they were escorted from the party, booked in the jail and held in their cells.

“I would never want to get that intoxicated or that wasted, because I would not be able to function,” Fay said of the goggles.

The senior said the experience likely will influence some of her decisions when she attends Kennesaw State University this fall.

“Definitely, you know, have fun, but control myself,” she said.

Fellow senior Saulo Encarnacion said the event gave him a sense that peer pressure has its pitfalls.

Encarnacion’s scenario was that he smoked spice, or synthetic marijuana, with some friends after class and was arrested for erratic driving while high. He completed his court-mandated treatment but fell back into abusing drugs, which eventually led him to drop out of school.
But the senior, who will attend Georgia Southern University this fall, said he does not intend to let such roadblocks stand between him and his college degree.

“Right now, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t do any of this. But if something like that were to happen, it’s giving you sort of an outline of what would happen to you if something like this did happen,” he sa

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HPD Reports
crime scene

From Hinesville Police Department reports. Editor’s note: Due to computer issues at the city, reports have been unavailable in recent weeks. They are back. Our thanks to the HPD clerks who provide them. We’re catching up as quickly as possible.

Burglary, etc: A man called 911 on Feb. 27 because he was watching his White Circle home getting burglarized. The man said his alarm system had an app that showed live video on his phone, and he was “viewing three males inside his residence,” as he talked to 911.
Police responded, caught two of them inside the house and found the third guy “hiding behind a tree,” the report said.
Detectives are investigating.

Public indecency: An officer was sent to Lowes around 4:30 p.m. March 12 in reference to a disturbance involving a man and a woman.
The woman, a Lowe’s employee, said she had just got back from her lunch break when she saw the man “looking around at items on a shelf.”
The woman said she asked him if he needed help finding anything and he held up something, then said “I have found everything I need,” the report said. “(he) then placed his arms around (the employee) to hug her and then kissed (her) neck. (She) then moved away from (him) and told him to have a nice day and attempted to walk away from (the man). (He) then began to follow (her), stating ‘I would lick you up and down’ and ‘you better hide in an office.’ (She) then spoke with manager and called 911.’”
The man told police he thought he recognized the woman “and stated to me that he had previously had a relationship with her approximately two years ago. (He) was unable to recall (her) name while on scene.”
The woman told police “she has never seen, nor spoken to (the man) before today.”
The woman was given a case number and told what to do. The man was allowed to leave.

Indecent exposure: A Berkshire Terrace man reported he went outside his house around 6:40 a.m. and “observed a man who appeared to be intoxicated, peeing on his truck and trailer.”
The complainant said the man “fully exposed his penis while he was peeing. When (complainant) asked him to stop the man told him to ‘shut the (bleep) up.’ (Complainant) advised the man he would call police. (Complainant) advised his young son was standing outside during the incident. He said the man got into a 1996 black Buick and drove away, almost hitting cars that were parked in the driveway.”
The complainant said he did not want to press charges, “he said he wanted to report the incident because the man did not stop peeing when he asked him too.”
The complainant said he’d seen the man before “come and go” from a nearby apartment. The officer met with the resident of that apartment, who said the man was a cousin and did not pee on the complainant’s trailer.

Identity theft: A man went to HPD on March 21 to report that when he went to get a driver’s history for a commercial driver’s license, he found several citations on the history that weren’t his. “(He) stated he noticed someone was issued four citations in Arkansas and one citation in Jacksonville, Florida,” and during the time the Arkansas tickets were written he was in locked up in Georgia.
“(He) advised that he was not incarcerated when the citation in Jacksonville, Florida was issued but he was not in Florida at the time. (He) was unable to leave the state of Georgia due to being on felony probation.”
It gets worse.
“(He) told me that he attempted to file his income taxes for the first time ever and he was rejected due to owing the IRS money, $20,000. (He) stated he spoke to a representative for the IRS and he was informed that taxes were filed in his name in 2014 and the return was $1,3000. (He) advised he did not file taxes in 2013 and he was still incarcerated at the time.”
The man then told the officer he thinks his brother “got the citations and filed income taxes using his information. (He) believed his brother obtained his Social Security number and other demographics when he was incarcerated.”
The man said he talked to his brother, who said he paid all the tickets. “(His) brother also told him on a different occasion that he knew his date of birth and (SSN). (He) advised he told his brother that it was not OK to use his name due to him getting his life together and attempting to drive commercial vehicles.”
The guy said he didn’t have his brother’s address. He chose to fill out an identity theft packet.

Simple battery, theft by taking: An officer was sent around 2 a.m. March 20 to the Baymont Inn regarding a disturbance. There, a woman said she was being “grabbed and pulled” by a man when she told him to leave her motel room. She said they began arguing when he accused her of stealing $100.
The man claimed he met the woman on a dating website and when they “started having sex she informed him that it would cost $100.” He told her he wasn’t going to pay her, “got dressed and realized the five $20s in his pants pocket were missing. He accused (her) of stealing his money.”
The officer asked the woman if she stole the man’s money and she replied, “No, I work hard for my money.”
Both were given a case number and told how to get a warrant.

Robbery: A woman called HPD March 15 to report she was home when her estranged husband came to her apartment “and asked her to come outside to talk to him,” a report said.
“She stated that she stepped outside thinking that he was going to be civil, though she recently filed for divorce from him. As she stepped outside, he grabbed her necklace off her neck and then ran down the stairwell and out to the parking lot.”
The woman said he stood by his vehicle a minute, then drove off as police arrived. Officers checked the area but had no luck finding the man.

Burglary: Police were sent to a Malibu Drive address on March 13 regarding missing firearms and ransacked rooms. The homeowners were at work and got home to find handguns and rifles missing, as well as video games.
It appeared the home may have been broken into through the attic. Police found footprints and other evidence, and the case is under investigation.

Recovered stolen trailer: A U-Haul employee was inventorying equipment on March 14 when she discovered a trailer that had been reported stolen in Florida on Dec. 26. “She stated someone had backed the trailer into a parking stall along with the other trailers sometime during the night.”

Theft: In February, the maintenance man at Cypress Bend Mobile Home Park reported that “22 air conditioning unit disconnect boxes were stolen from various lots… He stated he began receiving calls from people that their air conditioning units were not working.”
The boxes contain small pieces of copper. He didn’t know who swiped them, but valued the total at about $341.

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