Excise officers hope Butler patrols have deterrent effect - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

Welcome to Friday night near Butler University, brought to you by the Indiana State Excise Police.

Police have pulled over a Jeep with three young men in it, suspecting one of the passenger's bought alcohol for the underage driver.

"I just wanted to check your id on the alcohol and your driver's license," Corporal Travis Thickstun told the men in the vehicle.

It's all part of an Excise crackdown on Indiana college campuses this fall.

Last weekend, police ran special "dangerous drinking patrols" near the IU Bloomington, Ball State and Notre Dame campuses. Officers wrote more than 300 tickets.

"A lot of what we're looking for is underage drinking, binge drinking, furnishing alcohol to minors and things like that," said Thickstun.

This weekend's it's Butler's turn.

What will police find? Some freshmen who've only been on campus a week said it wasn't hard to find a party.  

"It's usually just a house party here and there," said freshman Katie Pailone.

"We have seen keg stands and things like that, but most of the time, they are of age," said Breanna Manley of the parties she and friends have been to this past week.

The ones who aren't 21, though, could get busted if Excise police happen to be there.

Just down the street in Broad Ripple, police will be there, too, during the weekend.  Undercover and uniformed officers will be going into bars, seeking underaged drinkers and to check identifications to make sure they're not fake.

"Last weekend, we issued 14 tickets in Broad Ripple," said Thickstun. "Most of it was for possession of false id's, minor consumption of alcohol, things of that nature." Police said they're not trying to hide their efforts.

"We want people to know about it, because we want the deterrent effect that results from folks knowing that police are out looking for these types of things," said Thickstun.

Obviously for the Butler students pulled over, it wasn't a secret anymore. They ended up with the tickets and emptied beer cans and vodka bottles to show for it.