With so many rumors filtering throughout campus about underage drinking and the police, experts decided to set the record straight.

A panel came to Memorial Student Union on Wednesday during ARM’s “Get Out of Jail Free” event to give students the truth regarding underage drinking, law enforcement and MU involvement. The panel included Columbia Police Department Lt. Chris Kelley; MU Police Department crime prevention officer Jennifer Lynch; special agent Nancy McGee; MU Career Center senior coordinator Amanda Nell; and Student Conduct senior coordinator Donell Young.

“I’m not naïve to what goes on,” Young said. “It’s college — have fun. But if you do something illegal and even if you make sure you are being responsible, there is a chance that you will still get in trouble.”

Many students asked questions about truth behind certain rumors, such as one that says police target STRIPES vehicles. According to Kelley, this rumor is especially untrue.

“We do not target STRIPES,” Kelley said. “We have tried to squash that rumor for many years. We will only stop the STRIPES cars if the passenger is being rowdy. We want you guys to have a safe ride home. That’s what it’s there for.”

Lynch said she agreed with this and said MUPD didn’t target STRIPES cars during a sobriety checkpoint in September.

“As far as the sobriety checkpoints go, there were rumors that said we arrested STRIPES cars,” Lynch said. “We did stop those cars, but they weren’t targeted. We said we would stop every car going through that checkpoint, and we did. We even stopped pizza delivery cars several times because they just so happened to go through that checkpoint.”

One fact the panel could all agree on is that there is a growing number of students who are going to the hospital due to alcohol poisoning, and many of them are left by themselves.

“Don’t leave your wingman or wingwoman,” Kelley said. “I can’t believe how many times you guys leave your friends (when they are intoxicated). Just last week we found a man that his friends had left him in a ditch on Rock Quarry Road throwing up all over himself. His BAC was a .28. His buddies knew where he was, but they left him.”

Young spoke of consequences for underage drinking from the university’s standpoint and said any situation where a student is drinking underage will also be investigated by MU.

“The university rules are very similar to criminal law,” Young said. “What my office does is we try to determine based on the evidence that a student broke a code of conduct. We will not wait for the city to make a decision. We will make a decision and make the student accountable for their actions.”

Kelley and McGee also talked about the legal issues with fake IDs. They said that over the summer, eight MU students were suspected by the United States Department of Homeland Security to be involved with making fake IDs for people internationally. But a bigger issue, McGee said, is that students believe they can get away with making and using these IDs in Columbia.

“If you are making them for your friends, you could get a felony,” McGee said. “Most of the fake IDs you try to buy try to mimic certain identifiers that let police know they are real, but I can guarantee law enforcement officer is experienced in finding fake IDs, and you will be caught.”

Above all else, Kelley said the biggest thing he is concerned with is student safety.

“We’re going to lose a student if you guys don’t take care of each other,” Kelley said. “I don’t want to lose an MU student.”