TAPPED OUT!
Upper Darby cops thwart teen drinking party by seizing keg, then let kids know on social media
UPPER DARBY » Party crashers don’t hold a flame to the Upper Darby Police Department.
The county’s largest municipal police department got national attention in a tweet showing a police officer disrupting a soon-to-be underage drinking party by hauling away a keg of beer found in the woods.
“Attn young people,” the post starts out, “you might want to hold off on buying the red plastic cups for tonight’s party behind the Aronimink Swim Club (aka the palace). There will probably be a lack of attendance now.”
The post elicited plenty of responses from people who applauded the department’s humorous public service announcement to curb underage drinking.
“Half the time when I write these things I don’t find them nearly as funny as other people do,” said Capt. David Madonna, the humorous mastermind behind the social media accounts. “That’s what humor is, you write about something that everyone can connect to. Because it is a relatable item it definitely swelled in popularity.”
Busting these underage drinking parties by online postings isn’t new territory for the department. The kegger killers have been addressing the topic for years on social media with such posts showing a police car advertising as an illegal imbiber’s taxi for the night.
According to Madonna, the posts about busting these wooded area drinking events generate the most activity and engagement on their accounts.
“It’s funny that anytime we tweet out something or post something on social media in regards to foiling an underage drinking party. For some reason that resonates with the public,” he said. “I don’t know what it is, I’ve yet to figure it out. I guess because it’s a rite of passage that a lot of people have gone through, and certainly this generation is no exception.
“Whenever I tweet about (them) it’s met with resounding support.”
The latest PSA came from a Jan. 11 tweet busting the eventual party by the Aronimink Swim Club in Drexel Hill. Madonna said residents saw some young people rolling the keg into the woods. With police notification, Officer Michael Scott and his partner, Sam Ziviello, checked the scene out and found the keg. Scott’s picture was taken with the found vessel of beer which was carted away in the back of the police vehicle.
There was no word on who provided the keg to the teenagers.
With easy access to social media and other public platforms to communicate, identifying these potential parties is becoming easier to find.
“The parties get more well-attended (when they do occur) because the word gets spread that much quicker,” said Madonna. “They get the word out with relative ease with social media. Of course, we monitor that … they’re becoming more prevalent because it’s getting so easy to get the word out.”
Madonna added that there are certain key words the department searches on these platforms to generate leads and ideas on where/ when parties may happen. He also said there may be a couple of these events a month in popular spots like “The Palace” (Aronimink Swim Club), Cobbs Golf Course, behind Collenbrook United Church, right off of Bishop Avenue and cemeteries, too.
“We try to take every step that we can to prevent the party. We tell them, ‘Look, we understand this party’s going on, don’t do it,’” said Madonna. “We very easily be could lying in wait waiting for these kids to show up, but we try to be preventative, try to prevent them from making a mistake.”
Stopping these parties hidden in the shadows of the night is an attempt to preventive another potential death from underage drinking. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that excessive drinking results in 4,300 underage deaths every year. In 2010 there were 189,000 emergency room visits by underage drinkers due to alcohol-related injuries and conditions.
“We want the young people of our community to be healthy, safe and happy,” said Madonna.
And what about comments suggesting the police should be doing more important things in the township than thwarting a party?
Madonna made that clear in a tweet on Jan. 12 that addressed the “don’t you have anything better to do?” claim. He posted a picture of nine filing cabinets filled with investigation case files from the past year, with over a dozen other boxes visible containing more files.
“Below is a pic of our investigative files from 2016 and 2017. Trust me — we care,” read the accompanying caption.
Madonna knew when their social media accounts were started that he wanted to balance the seriousness of police work with comedy to get people coming back to their profiles. That mentality has collected over 13,000 followers on Twitter, a substantial number for a “small” force of about 120 officers.
But it’s that strong police-community involvement that drives the department’s social media posts, and with surprising success.
“My intention was always to have police be relatable to the public. I wanted people to see that we find humor and sadness and joy in all of the same things they do with a little bit of attention paid to the law enforcement aspect to it,” said Madonna. “I wanted to lure (the public) in with some comedic value to the tweets and at that point once they’re there, we can say we have something (criminal) going on, can you help us.
“As a result of luring them in with some humor we have been able to solve a multitude of crimes based on the tips, our large audience and retweets. Going to that site to get the levity has helped us have a fantastic audience base that helps our department in times of need.”