Underage drinking is “prevalent” among students of Lakewood’s Green Mountain High School, the school’s principal says in the wake of Tuesday’s fatal crash involving a Green Mountain student suspected of driving drunk.
“I definitely think the Green Mountain area has an underage drinking problem,” principal Barb Goings said Friday. “It’s nothing to brag about.”
The 16-year-old girl believed to have caused the head-on crash that killed Bear Creek High School student Samara Stricklen, 17, is suspected by police of being intoxicated at the time.
An off-duty police officer at the scene of the collision told 9News he smelled alcohol on the young driver’s breath.
The name of the 16-year-old, a top gymnast at Green Mountain, is being withheld because she is a minor and has not yet been charged with a crime.
A sport utility vehicle driven by the 16-year-old and carrying three other teenagers struck a car in which Stricklen was riding at West Alameda Parkway and West Florida Drive in Lakewood, killing Stricklen and critically injuring the car’s driver, 20-year-old Seth Mutschler.
Green Mountain teachers spoke to students Friday during classes about underage drinking, Goings said. Also, student council members from Bear Creek and Green Valley high schools contacted each other and agreed to meet to discuss ways they can reduce underage drinking.
Lakewood police are testing the 16-year-old girl’s blood to verify whether she was driving under the influence at the time of the crash, said Lakewood police spokesman Steve Davis. The results should come within a few days, he said.
The girl remained in custody Friday at Mount View Detention Center on a $10,000 bail, he said.
Formal charges could be brought against the girl by Tuesday, said Pam Russell, spokeswoman for the Jefferson County district attorney’s office.
The investigation is broader than just the girl’s actions, principal Goings said.
“How the alcohol was provided and who was involved is part of the criminal investigation,” she said. “A young life has been taken, and no matter what we do, it can never be brought back.”
Whenever Goings or one of her staff members gets a call about underage drinking parties, she urges people to report the incidents to police. She said most other schools face similar problems.
But she said she has heard reports of student-involved drinking parties frequently enough that she and a resource officer formed a parents’ group last year called “We Care.”
Parents attend meetings in which experts, including prosecutors, discuss underage drinking and other teen perils such as Internet predators, she said.
Many people don’t see underage drinking as a problem, said school resource officer Stacey Collis, a Lakewood police detective.
“Some people look at underage drinking as a rite of passage,” Collis said. “This is something that goes beyond the school. It’s a community issue.”
Goings said she has twice brought experts to her school to address another problem involving young drivers: teens illegally taking their friends in the car.
In mid-2005, Colorado’s “graduated” driver licensing law went into effect, restricting new drivers from carrying other teens in their vehicles for the first year they hold a license.
The 16-year-old involved in Tuesday’s crash had received her driver’s license only the week before the collision and could not legally take any teens in her car, Goings said.
She had two girls – Nanette Lafleur, 16, and Jessica Curran, 17 – and an unidentified boy in her car at the time of Tuesday’s crash.
Green Mountain’s staff members have at least twice warned students leaving school grounds about the graduated-driver law, Goings said.
Teens are less cautious as they drive with friends, he said.
“The stereo is turned up, they’re talking to other passengers and their cellphones are going,” Collis said.
Last year, Colorado State Patrol troopers issued 141 citations statewide against teens who violated limits on driving with teens, said Lance Clem, State Patrol spokesman.
The law has had a positive effect, Master Trooper Ron Watkins said: “We’re finding that most parents are enforcing the law … telling their kids they can’t have anyone in the car with them.”
According to the State Patrol chief, Col. Mark Trostel, the number of deaths of teen drivers and their passengers across Colorado dropped from an average of 104 a year to 69 the year after the law was passed.
Staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com.
