Although the presence of officers from the state's Alcohol Law Enforcement Division at Duke events has dropped in the past two years, at least three students received citations from ALE officers at off-campus venues this weekend, a student confirmed.
ALE officers were at Devine's Restaurant and Sports Bar, Shooters II and Blu Seafood and Bar Saturday night, students confirmed.
Sophomore Candice Lopez, who is not yet 21, said her friend was carded at Shooters and asked to go outside with ALE officers because there were empty cups, which were not his, in front of him. Lopez said she followed them out to explain that the drinks did not belong to her friend and she was carded too.
"I wasn't drinking and didn't have a wristband, I was just talking to them," she said.
After Lopez provided her driver's license to the ALE officers they requested that she give them her fake ID, she said.
"They said, 'We know you have a fake too, either give it to us now or we'll search your purse and you will go to jail,'" Lopez said, adding that she gave her fake identification to them because she did not want them to search her purse.
Lopez said the ALE officers "made" her take a breathalyzer test and said, "You will take a breathalyzer test or we will arrest you."
"I just saw a friend getting arrested, apparently she was not cooperating with them," Lopez said. "They threw her on the ground [and] she had bruises and scratches. They were very rude. That's why I didn't want to argue with them."
Lopez added that a third student had to pay $1,000 to bail the arrested student out of jail.
"She apparently just walked away when [the ALE officers] asked for her ID," Lopez said. "They said she was resisting the police and arrested her."
Lopez said she was unsure if the student had been drinking.
Two other students were also cited outside of Shooters, she said.
Senior Cara Stalzer, who was at Blu Seafood and Bar Saturday night and is over 21, said three ALE officers dressed in street clothes came into the bar and carded five of her friends, all of whom were over 21. She added that all of her friends had already been carded at the door by the bouncer and were wearing wristbands.
"They said they were carding everyone who looked young, so it was very subjective," Stalzer said.
The five students presented their drivers' licenses to the ALE officers but the officers requested a secondary form of identification to verify the validity of the licenses, Stalzer said.
"He was gone for 15 to 20 minutes, we were kind of concerned and wanted our IDs back," she said. "It put a big damper on the night... and made everyone leave the bar since no one wanted to be around when the officers are around."
Stalzer added that she did not see ALE officers carding anyone else when she was there but one of the officers told her that they had cited someone already that night.
She also said the officers were "bordering on rude."
ALE officers and owners of Blu Seafood and Bar, Devine's and Shooters could not be reached for comment Sunday night.
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