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Published on 06/19/1996 All articles from this issue

'Reality Check,' a sober graduation on Kaleidoscope

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By Joanne Griffith Domingue / Town Crier Staff Writer

Jake Harrington, a senior at Los Altos High School, pretends tobe arrested for drunken driving.

Kate Moll, who just graduated from Los Altos High School, takespictures.

Brent Butler, a Los Altos Police Officer, makes the mock arrestin front of Los Altos High School.

Harrington and Moll are two of the many teens from around SantaClara County who participated in a program sponsored by SantaClara County law enforcement agencies called Sober GraduationDay: Reality Check which was held March 25.

Together the students created a 30-minute video show from 15 hoursof video tape for the program called "Reality Check"which airs during June on Kaleidoscope, a Los Altos cable televisionshow.

To make the show, the students walked among 16 bodies in the "chiller"at the Santa Clara County morgue; they took sobriety checks, werehandcuffed, put into the back of a patrol car and taken to thecounty jail.

"I have never seen such fear as I have seen in the eyes ofhigh school students the first time they enter a detention facility,"said Los Altos Police Chief Lucy Carlton. "'Realty Check'reenactments are intended to protect local high school studentstoday from any real-life consequences of drunken driving downthe road."

Carol Curran, Los Altos economic development coordinator and Kaleidoscopeexecutive producer, said, "June is a carefree time of year,especially for high school seniors. That makes June a risky timeof graduation parties where young people may decide to drink anddrive."

In 1994 in Santa Clara County, there were 2,026 misdemeanor drunkendriving arrests and 90 felony drunken driving arrests of peopleaged 14 to 24. A felony drunken driving case is one in which someoneis injured or killed.

The video will be distributed to high schools throughout the county.Copies may be checked out free at Rancho Video.

Carlton said, "It is important that students live to seethe first day of the rest of their lives."