What is my MC dealing with? Police busting a party.

[GlitterRain]

I’m working on a new first chapter for my trilogy. I’ve already completed a lot of it, but I have some questions I’m hoping to get some help with regarding how the rest should play out.

Background:

My MC, a moxie, reckless, slightly misanthropic, petty criminal and newly-turned 18 year old goes to a party with a guy of similar age who is not a friend and does not even know the MC’s real name. They have been to similar parties with some familiar faces. No one knows the MC’s real name, and they all assume the name he gave them is his real name and that he is 21+. The MC goes to these parties to drink because he doesn’t want to drink in his motel room with his girlfriend, and he doesn’t like any of the local bars. This party happens to be at an abandoned mall. He brings liquor bought with his fake ID, but as the party has broken out into two groups in two separate places of the mall due to locational technicalities, he trades his bottle with someone else in the other group. He gets in a scuffle with his group after most of the other group comes over to his, and he leaves and seeks to grab something else to drink from the other group’s place they were at and probably leave. At this point, he has been drinking, but he is not drunk and is still fully coherent.

At the other group’s spot, there are 16 year old twins that were left behind. One has given himself alcohol poisoning and very likely drowned in vomit, and the other begs the MC for help. The MC doesn’t really care and doesn’t really know how he can help anyways because he thinks the kid looks like he’s dead already. The twin that is begging for help has called for an ambulance already, which he told the MC, but the MC doesn’t realize how soon they will be there. He’s still in shock from walking in on this and knowing that he should try to help at least a little and also realizing that he is an adult now and provided alcohol that may have killed this kid. He doesn’t get out before paramedics and the police get there, and the police grab the MC.

The whole point of this inciting incident is to force the MC to leave the area so he will ultimately choose to go to the region the book takes place in. So the MC can’t be taken to the police station or anything, much less charged for any crime he has committed (at this time).

Questions:

I am thinking all the people attending the party would probably at least be detained and questioned, including the MC, because at this point, the police don’t know what is going on other than a kid is either dead or in critical condition and there’s a bunch of people trespassing in this mall. Is this a logical move for the police to make? Or are they going to arrest all these people right away because they can, at face value, be charged with trespassing if nothing else? If it matters, these people are all high schoolers or college-aged, so a mix of adults and minors.

The MC, when asked by the police for his name, license, or whatever, would of course lie and give his fake name (he only has a fake license). Is there any way he could give them his fake name and they not know he gave them a fake name right away?

What is the likelihood the MC could just run off, duck into a janitor’s closet or something similar (even if in handcuffs), and leave only after everyone else leaves? Like theoretically, there are more partygoers than police, at least at the very beginning when they get the MC, who hasn’t put up a fight yet or given them any reason to think he’d flee. Any chance they may turn their back on him for at least a few moments to allow him time to run and hide or get out of the mall, or would writing his escape this way be not believable?

It is best if the MC can get away from this incident without being stuck with charges from it. He gets arrested and charged with a felony for something completely unrelated at the end of the book, and I don’t want to have to deal with factoring charges from this mall party into what I already wrote at the end of the first book, especially because the timing in particular is crucial and I can’t really add any more time regarding sentencing for other crimes. However, there has to be enough of a threat of him getting caught for this incident, in the moment, to convince him that he needs to leave the area.

Any help is appreciated!

 

[Rigor Mortis]

A couple of things occur.

Firstly,

knowing that he should try to help at least a little

mc is not a fully committed misanthropist, which may be useful in drawing out tensions.

Twin has called paramedics. Given the scene, the ambulance might be accompanied by a squad car with a couple of cops. The priority, obviously, is the kid who's not doing so well and all attention focuses there. mc, as by-stander, may be asked to stay put until the priority is handled and they have time to work out what's what. I don't know about your side of the Atlantic but cuffs wouldn't be whipped out at this stage, though cops have now seen mc, therefore will recognise him and he should leave the location.

Even if Paddy wagons and SWAT teams arrive, there's likely to be more kids getting chased than cops to chase them, leaving opportunity for mc to escape. If it's just the couple of cops accompanying the medics, he doesn't stay put and slips away while their attention is on the sick kid. If he gives a fake name, the cops aren't going to immediately know that unless his id is absolutely terrible. All that you've outlined seems plausible.

I would say, it would be hard to pin responsibility on mc because the twin drank too much. I'd suggest tying it more tightly to mc by having him make or purchase some class of moonshine, which causes the kid to collapse and places him in direct line of what happens to the twin, leaving him to flee.

 

[GlitterRain]

@Rigor Mortis, thank you for the response! It’s very helpful.

though cops have now seen mc, therefore will recognise him and he should leave the location.

cuffs wouldn't be whipped out at this stage

If I wanted to add in some more action, would it make sense if they actually did handcuff (but not arrest) the MC due to some other thing that he did before the book starts where he ran into the cops through something else he did or took part in and they recognize him from that? Possibly they had asked him his name in the previous encounter, he lied, escaped again, and is now on their radar but they know that the name he had given isn’t his real name? And this time, whereas they maybe wouldn’t do it to all the partygoers, they want to charge him for trespassing, at the very least, because he has been a menace for as long as he has been in the area? (he’s a runaway/missing person from another region)

 

[Rigor Mortis]

I would say that anything you can conceive can be sold if told confidently enough. I'm not sure a cop can cuff someone without arresting them, even if formal notification of the arrest comes after they've settled down a bit. The thing to remember is, there's the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) which govern the actions and limits of every police officer, etc. Then there's the things that have been known to happen, which includes habitual and anomalous, where even their colleagues are saying they don't believe it. Police officers, in my experience, are like elephants with face recognition.