Kari Polydoris was sitting in a car with friends in the Pi Beta Phi sorority parking lot when an excise police officer approached.
The uniformed officer came up to the window and asked the women what they were doing. When he spotted a bottle of liquor in the back seat, he asked whom it belonged to. Polydoris, a sophomore, said it was hers and that she could grab her license from inside the sorority house if he wanted. The officer declined and the girls left the car and went inside.
Polydoris' encounter with the officer, although uneventful, was part of the Indiana State Excise Police Intensified College Enforcement initiative, or ICE. The crackdown, which focuses on enforcing alcohol and tobacco-related state law at Ball State University, Indiana University and DePauw, began on Feb. 6 and runs into June. It is funded by a grant from the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute.
Lt. Kevin Akers, who heads the excise district that includes Greencastle, said the state excise police are looking for students who appear to be young or have alcoholic beverages in plain view.
"If it's something they (excise police) see and it raises they're suspicion, then they can investigate further," Akers said. "Sometimes folks that we encounter end up being 21 years of age, sometimes they don't."
And in the same parking lot where Polydoris and her friends avoided charges, another group of women didn't.
A sophomore, who wished to remain anonymous, was in a car with five other women, some of who were drinking, when an excise officer approached them. The friends were "car bar-ing," a tradition in which sorority women drink in their cars because they are prohibited from doing so in their chapter houses.
The anonymous sophomore said the car was idling but couldn't see how the officer had reasonable suspicion to come onto Pi Beta Phi's parking lot, which is private property.
"We were just wondering the question of probable cause because he went through our property," she said. "I'm not really sure why he came up to the car."
The officer asked the women to step out of the car one at a time and blow into a Breathalyzer. Of the six girls in the car, four received citations for underage consumption of alcohol. All were under 21 years of age.
"For the most part I think it's a good safety technique, but I think it's a little bit unfair," Polydoris said. "They should give us a little bit of warning that they may be coming this weekend so people can get prepared for it, and if they get in trouble that's under their own fault."
Akers said excise officers have made about 19 arrests in Putnam County since Feb. 6, over 50 percent of which involved students at DePauw. The rest were local residents.
According to Akers, that activity may drop off drastically when the school year ends. Still, the Ball State Daily News recently reported that the ICE initiative could be extended to the 2012 fall semester if found to be effective.
The newspaper also reported that more than 100 citations had been issued from the start of the program to March 11. Akers said the difference in student population size at DePauw and Ball State accounts for the disparity of police action.
Excise police in Putnam County are intentionally expanding their patrols beyond campus, a limited practice at larger colleges like Ball State and Indiana University.
"It's feasible that students [at DePauw] may elect to go to other towns that aren't too distant or too far away in order to make alcohol purchases," Akers said.
The lieutenant didn't know how many tickets had been issued on university property since the ICE initiative began but was aware there had been some.
Akers said that all student charges were alcohol related, while non-students in Putnam County had been charged with, among other things, alcohol violations, juvenile tobacco possession and resisting law enforcement.
Those citations and arrests have come from a variety of excise patrols, which cover public streets and sidewalks, as well as outside of bars and liquor stores. Officers dress in uniform and plainclothes, and Akers said some even camp out in unexpected ways.
"We will go into a store and notify the management that we are there, and we'll pose as employees," Akers said. "We may be behind the counter or near some of the shelves...so that we may be perceived as being an employee of the store."
Employees at the local Kork and Keg liquor store said they had seen excise police in the store since the program began but were unable to provide additional information. The owner of the store could not be reached for comment in time for deadline.
In liquor stores, Akers said excise police are primarily looking for people that appear to be under 21 years of age but also witness the occasional theft or public intoxication.
"We're also patrolling around the streets on campus, near campus, anywhere that we could reasonably expect college students to be," Akers said.
That means excise police will focus on patrolling greek houses as well.
Jason Edelman, a junior and president of Alpha Tao Omega fraternity, said he could absolutely see how the increased crackdown by excise police might cause problems for fraternities in general but wasn't worried about his own chapter.
According to Akers, those problems come almost exclusively from incidents outside the chapter house, which fall under the plain view and open fields doctrines. That means that a police officer could move onto or seize evidence from private property if he or she has reasonable suspicion that something illegal is taking place.
"If it is a young-appearing person who has a container of alcohol...and they look to be under 21 years of age, that officer would have a reasonable suspicion that that person is a minor in possession of alcohol," Akers said. "So they can even walk up on that lawn and further investigate."
That student could not be arrested for public intoxication, but Akers said, if that person was causing some sort of disturbance he or she could be arrested for disorderly conduct.
Edelman was already aware of policing authority regarding incidents outside the fraternity house and suggested that other fraternity leaders should ensure their members know about the excise crackdown on underage drinking and keep them safe.
Akers said he has spoken with Director of Public Safety Angela Nally and Dean of Campus Life Dorian Shager about the excise police efforts in Greencastle, adding that he would be more than willing to visit members of the Interfraternity and Panhellenic Councils at DePauw to answer any questions students may have.
"I look at it as a really good opportunity for an educational opportunity, because a lot of this has to do with the legal system and constitutionality," Akers said. "I'm sure that's what a lot of the questions concern."