Torrey Pines journalism students talk about the tragedy

I sat down last week with journalism students at Torrey Pines High School, figuring they would have their finger on the pulse of the attitudes and emotions of their fellow students regarding the fatal rollover on Oct. 4 that killed one classmate, Alex Capozza, seriously injured another, and sent the underage driver to Juvenile Hall, charged with gross vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence of alcohol.

Students spoke freely about their thoughts on drinking, driving, partying, Alex’s death, the future of the driver who awaits his next court appearance  on Nov. 10, what can be done to improve programs on alcohol and drug abuse, and the grief and sense of bewilderment that has overtaken their campus.

In all, I was impressed with their eloquence, intelligence, insights and compassion. They clearly do not take the issue lightly and have given it a great deal of thought. Will it change behavior? To a person, each said that they hoped so, but each also expressed some measure of doubt.

Related: Carmel Valley community distraught over fatal teen crash

Anonymity was provided to allow the students, all seniors, to speak openly, so names have been changed to protect identity. Below are excerpts:

Q: What was the reaction at school to the tragedy?

Andrew: Overall, shock. And sadness. It’s something that a lot of kids haven’t had to deal with before. I guess they’re shocked, but mixed with disbelief that it could actually happen. At this age a lot of people think they’re invincible and nothing could happen to them. I hate to use the cliché, but it’s a wake-up call.

Philip: Definitely grief. The first day after, there was a huge crowd of people in the lecture hall. A junior did a really big drawing of the five kids in the accident - their faces. Kids were allowed to sign it and leave messages, and eventually she gave that to the parents.

Cathy: The first few days were really hard. So many kids just go through life not really thinking about the consequences some of their decisions can have, and I think it was a serious rude awakening. People who didn’t even know [Alex] were so affected.

Steve: I’ve never seen the campus look like this before. There was widespread grief. I don’t think students ever expected that something like that could happen to our community. A lot of students feel this is a privileged community. They’re not used to anything like that occurring to us.

They see it in movies, they read about it in books, but kids aren’t actually used to having something like that happen to themselves. They may see grandparents die and family members maybe, but to see someone die their age is traumatizing.

One of the feelings I’ve been getting from everyone, including myself, is the real widespread feeling that this could have been me or this could have been anyone.

Q: Will this accident change teen behavior regarding drinking and driving? Will students think twice now about driving drunk?

Steve: It changed my behavior. To be honest, I’ve driven home not overly drunk but I’ve driven home on a few beers before. I don’t ever see that happening again. And this instance allowed me to talk to my parents and talk to my dad. My dad said to me: If you call me and ask me to pick you up, I’m not going to say anything to you in the morning. I’m not going to ground you, I’m not going to get mad at you. I’m just going to pick you up and be thankful that you called me. And we’ll go get your car in the morning.

Very few people drink themselves to death. There’s a lot more people that drink and drive themselves to death. The problem is the driving. That’s the important part. I think law enforcement realizes that, too.

Cathy: I hope so. From what I’ve heard, this woke [everyone] up. You live that close to the edge and think nothing’s going to happen. They can’t just live like they’re not going to ever see any consequences. Anyone could have gotten in that car that night or taken Alex home or been in there with no seatbelt. And it’s not like they are crazy out-of-control mean people.

I think [students] will cut back on drinking and driving. But I’m not sure they will cut back on drinking.

Philip: I really hope so. I don’t want to sound cliché, but it really could have been anyone. I think the reason so many people sympathize with the driver was because a lot of kids do it. Not many will admit to it, but a lot of them do. I’ve been at parties where kids have had a couple of beers and then driven home. It’s like, oh, it’s no big deal.

I don’t want to sound like a pessimist but kids could forget.

Andrew: I think people will for the most part not drink and drive. Of course there will still be some people who don’t know that it could happen to them. But overall, I think people who drink and drive won’t be doing that any more.

Q: Will these lessons last?

Steve: Yeah, it will. For kids who were close with Alex, it’s life-changing - or it’s going to change at least the way you think, [even] if it doesn’t change your lifestyle.

You think your friends are going to be around forever. Even when they’re growing away from you and then for you to not have an opportunity to reconnect with them, that’s very hard.

Philip: Homecoming was two weeks after the crash, and there were only a couple of people, people really close with Alex, who didn’t drink. People who usually drink, most of them, continued to drink.

Andrew: Honestly, it might not last that long. From what I’ve heard from teachers, something like this happens almost every five or six years. So it can’t last all that long because it’s going to fade away. People who experienced this, they’re going to graduate they’re going to move on. They’re not going to have that influence on the next group.

Q: Survey results from 2007 show that, in the previous 30 days, about two-thirds of Torrey Pines 11^th-graders consumed alcohol, about one-fourth engaged in binge drinking, and about one-third admitted to driving drunk or riding in a car with someone who had been drinking. Do these numbers seem right to you?

Cathy: Drinking, definitely. I’ve never been around people getting in cars who’ve been drinking, but maybe that’s just me. That just seems like so not smart.

Steve: I’d say you’re looking at a higher percentage of kids who have tried alcohol. I think the vast majority of students at Torrey Pines can say that at one point in their lives they’ve tried alcohol. And I’m not talking about taking a sip of their dad’s beer. At one point they’ve tried drinking.

I feel that the majority of kids who drink, drink to get drunk. A good indicator is that kids tend to drink predominantly hard alcohol and no one likes the taste of hard alcohol at our age. If they say it tastes good, they’re lying to you.

Q: How do students feel about the driver?

Steve: There’s no one willing to say [the driver] deserves to go to jail for life or to jail for 20 years.

Cathy: The way [students] are seeing it is they don’t want to lose another friend … which is true.

Alex was really good friends with [the driver], so everyone’s just taking that approach. Like, we all just have to stick together. Obviously, he didn’t do it on purpose. We’re not trying to put blame on anyone because then you kind of lose sight of what the lessons you should learn are.

Andrew: I think kids are definitely seeing both sides of it. They definitely know that, technically, it was his fault. But they don’t want anything to happen to [the driver] because they know that the guilt alone is enough. To have this on his record for the rest of his life, it’s already messed up a big part of his life and that’s enough.

It’s people who are thinking: he’s my age, that could be me. Or that could be my best friend. What would I want to happen? Whereas adults … they see it as like, he was driving drunk and someone died in a car accident. They think it’s just so one-sided. But then when you actually know that person, it’s a lot of sides.

Philip: I’d say the vast majority of kids think he should get the lightest sentence. Most kids want that [wiped from his record] because it could have been any one of us. [And] I feel like parents of teenagers are a little more sympathetic. Like my parents, they’re sympathetic for [the driver], and a lot of my friends’ parents are.

Q: How could programs on alcohol awareness be improved?

Steve: There’s a few things that bug me. They put an emphasis on stopping drinking completely, stopping drugs completely. And I think it’s very hard for a kid to accept that and to make sense of it. Especially with drinking. They’re like: I’m not supposed to drink for the rest of my life? I’m turning 21 in three years.

I think they need to concentrate less on stopping those problems completely and concentrate more on stopping the factors that would lead to harm. I think they need to talk to kids about moderation, about the proper environment to do this in, where’s a bad environment, and bad decisions that could come as a result of this.

At driving school they show you those movies with the beating heart on the road. Those scare tactics - I’m not looking, we roll our eyes, this stuff is BS, there’s a one in a million chance. It’s way better when they can give you an example that’s a high chance and then talk to you about how to avoid that.

Cathy: When I get advice, I always respond better to people that tell me how to be safe rather than say: If you do this, you’re gonna die. [It's better when] they’re talking to me like they know what world we live in. Honestly, it’s high school and all that stuff goes on. You can’t go through high school without actually directly experiencing it. And you [need to] know how to deal with it and not like: Just don’t do it, just stay away from it. It’s not that easy, you know what I mean?

But it is against the law, so there’s not that much an adult can say. So allowing it would be inappropriate, so I don’t know.

Andrew: Right now we have things like Mothers Against Drunk Driving. But the problem with those is that every time they talk to us, it feels like we’re getting threatened, getting attacked. And that’s really hard for generally rebellious teenagers to deal with. And then they just think: Well, I’m going to do the opposite of what they said - because that’s just the nature of teenagers. If it was more … not attacking us, not acting like they’re superior, but just giving us advice.

Putting a crash car once a year in the quad … kids aren’t going to learn anything from that. It’s just scaring them. It’s not going to help.

Q: What about bringing this crashed car to campus?

Philip: Personally, I think that would be a little disrespectful in a way, to both Alex and [the driver]. So many kids are so close to the situation, it would just be bringing up bad memories. Especially for the three kids who survived, having to see that every day at school, I couldn’t imagine what that would be like.

Q: Can parents do a better job?

Cathy: Well, for parents who throw parties and provide alcohol, obviously they need to be doing a better job. My mom and my dad talk to me about this stuff. They’re concerned and that’s what helps me out. I know they actually care.

Philip: There are those parties every weekend. Some parents do [know], some parents don’t really know. A lot of the parents, they want them at their house so they can make sure that these kids aren’t drinking and driving. A couple of my friends say they’ve been to parties where parents collect keys, so sometimes when the parents are aware it gives them an opportunity to be a little more responsible.

Q: But they’re still serving alcohol to minors?

Philip: Yeah, but making sure that kids don’t leave.

Steve: A friend of mine got a DUI and she had two other girls in the car with their licenses. They wouldn’t drive even though neither of them had been drinking because it was after curfew. In that situation … you shouldn’t let the drunk girl drive home because you’re endangering all of your lives. Kids need to figure out, there’s minor risks and there’s major risks, and curfew to me is a minor risk. Being in the car with your drunk friend driving, that’s a major risk.

Marsha Sutton can be reached at: SuttComm@san.rr.com, or on Twitter [www.twitter.com/marshasutton]

Tags: Alex Capozza, candid, drinking, drunk, DUI, fatal crash, journalism, reaction, SDNN, students, Torrey Pines High School, tragedy

This entry was posted on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 2:14 pm and is filed under Local News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.