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Students stumble through syllabus week

He was wet, having fallen in the snow and ice multiple times. Drunk, underage and with slurred speech, he stood in the middle of South College Avenue trying to get a ride after drinking in Oxford.

It was 5:40 p.m. on Jan. 23, two days before spring semester classes would start, but there was no timeframe on drinking.

The Jonas snowstorm had just swept through the East Coast, so it was a cold 32 degrees when Oxford Police Department (OPD) officer Jacob Hayes stopped the drunk Miami student near the railroad tracks.

Just hours earlier, at 1:22 a.m., another intoxicated male near McKee Hall was transported to McCullough-Hyde Memorial Hospital for intoxication and possible frostbite or hypothermia, according to Miami University Police Department (MUPD) records.

When Hayes asked for any identification, the Miami student, like many others before and after him, produced a fake ID - this one said the student was from Kentucky. The officer noticed the student had difficulty standing on his own and he smelled like alcohol.

The student was taken back to the Oxford Police station and cited with a handful of offenses: Certain Acts Prohibited, Underage Consumption and Disorderly Conduct/Public Intoxication.

But before the officer could process the charges, the drunk Miami teen passed out, falling out of his seated position and onto the floor.

Then the student, also like many others before and since, was transported by the Oxford Fire Department to McCullough-Hyde.

A few hours later, just a little after 11 p.m., another male student was taken to McCullough-Hyde for intoxication, according to MUPD records.

In the 11-day span between Jan. 21 and Jan. 31, 11 other individuals were cited by OPD for a similar offense: Underage Consumption. Of those, two others also tried fake IDs when encountering OPD.

Another male, while not cited for underage drinking, was found passed out in the roadway due to intoxication. Another two also were transported to McCullough-Hyde.

In total, 12 individuals were cited for alcohol-related offenses in that 11-day span, 11 of those involving underage drinking.

Throughout all of November 2015, 37 individuals were cited for drinking offenses of some sort. Of those, 27 cases involved underage drinking offenses.

For December, there were six drinking offenses, half of which involved underage drinking citations. Fall semester classes ended on Dec. 12.

Finally, for the first 20 days of January 2016, there were nine drinking offenses, with four underage drinking citations.

It's not uncommon for OPD officers to find individuals passed out in public due to alcohol consumption, either. Between November 2015 and Jan. 20, 2016, nine individuals were found that way.

Like the drunk Miami student walking through the snow and standing in the roadway - or passed out in the street itself, as one underage individual was found to be - others are also noted for being in the road.

One female was cited for being highly intoxicated and for presenting "a risk of physical harm to herself."

Sometimes, instead of being passed out in the street or stumbling somewhere, the individual is found urinating in public.

In one case from Nov. 25, the underage male was found urinating outside Brick Street Bar. Two others, also in November, were found to be urinating while drunk.

So far, there's only been one reported case of intoxicated urinating this year.

Others dared to actually go inside Brick Street Bar and drink while underage, despite the bar checks and foot patrols.

It was midnight on the day classes resumed when OPD officers Matthew Wagers and Julia Huff, on foot patrol, entered through the front of Brick Street.

Once inside, three males stood out. One, holding a clear plastic cup with a brown liquid in it, took a drink.

Afterward, according to reports, one of the other males spotted Huff, and the male who took the drink tried to hide it behind his leg.

Perhaps sensing that wasn't a good hiding spot, he handed the cup over to one of the males next to him.

Huff approached him and the same story repeats itself after she runs his information: he's a Miami student drinking underage.

It would turn out to be a busy night for Wagers and Huff. Not even 40 minutes later, they were back inside Brick Street. The story repeats itself, this time with an underage female Miami student.

She, too, tried unsuccessfully to hide her drink - this one specified as a Budweiser beer bottle. On her way down to the main floor, she spotted the officers and froze. She squatted down and set the beer down on the step behind her.

When the officers took her outside, according to reports, she immediately said, "I'm 20 years old. I'm sorry."