A Special Message From 'The 35' to Dixon

The 35 would like to make sure that the public understands these five main points:

1. The bottle found was not confirmed to have been alcohol -  The nearly empty (very few oz.) vitamin water bottle was found by the bus driver and allegedly "smelled" like alcohol.  The employee told Principal Barsotti the bottle smelled like alcohol, but whether or not alcohol was in the bottle is unknown, it was never tested or turned over to authorities.
2. Prom 2012 Dance Contract was broken – As a part of the 2012 Prom, we the students and parents signed a dance contract which states “Students suspected of being under the influence will be subject to evaluation by DHS Administration and/or local law enforcement, including a breathalyzer exam. Students who are under the influence will have their parents contacted for pick-up.” The school administrators at the prom failed to uphold their end of the contract, none of the 35 students were breathalyzed or evaluated by administration and parents were never contacted.
3. Our safety was at risk – From 7:30pm-10:45pm, every one of the 35 students were forced to wait outside of Elk’s Tower in Downtown Sacramento, unsupervised and without access to bathrooms at least for the first hour. We were also not allowed to wait in the lobby until parents arrived to pick us up.
4. Parents were not contacted by school officials – As a part of the dance contract and school responsibilities, parents were not contacted regarding the incident which involved their 35 children left outside of Elk’s Tower and unable to enter their prom. Students used personal cell phones to find rides home from Sacramento to Dixon and some wandered around downtown unsupervised trying to find access to bathrooms. Our safety was at risk during the time we were waiting outside.
5. Breathalyzers were not offered – In order to demand our innocence of not drinking any alcohol, the 35 students demanded to be breathalyzed by Principal Barsotti.  Mr. Barsotti refused to breathalyze the students  even after some parents offered to bring breathalyzers to the scene or call local law enforcement.  Overall, We were wrongfully denied entrance into our Junior Prom and the school Principal violated the contract as well as our safety.  The driver of API Limousine in Sacramento also left us stranded with some of our property still in the limo-bus. We understand this is an on-going investigation by school officials, but would like to make the above facts clear in order to prove our innocence in these matters since we were not given the chance to Saturday night.  We understand the concern if it would have been a bottle of alcohol, if we were all aware of drinking happening on the bus or if we were drunk but we were not given the chance to prove otherwise. We all begged for a breathalyzer exam, and never received one.

Click here for all Promgate coverage.

Follow us on Twitter | Like us on Facebook | Sign up for breaking news alerts for updates on this story