Tips for a Safe Night Out
NEW YORK, July 28, 2006 — -- They were young. They were attractive. They were out for a good time. Instead they attracted sexual predators, and they wound up dead.
The recent murders of two young women in the New York area, both allegedly by sexual predators, have sparked concern about the safety of young female partygoers.
The victim latest is 18-year-old New Jersey resident Jennifer Moore. On July 20, her naked body was found in a Dumpster. She had been beaten and strangled after being followed from a Manhattan nightspot.
The attack on Moore came just months after graduate student Imette St. Guillen, 24, was allegedly raped, murdered and dumped in a vacant lot by Darryl Littlejohn, a nightclub bouncer at a popular Manhattan bar called the Falls.
The young women were assaulted and murdered following a long night's drinking and partying in popular Manhattan clubs.
Underage drinking and partying is a well-known problem -- according to figures from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 80 percent of high school seniors report that they have used alcohol and 64 percent report they have gotten drunk. Less well known is how to prevent tragedy from striking partygoers.
ABCNEWS.com talked to several experts on the risks that young people can face while drinking and partying.
According private investigator Steve Davis, a former New York Police Department captain, nightclubs and bars are particularly risky because young partygoers often go planning to meet strangers, and because clubs are often ill-equipped to monitor their customers' behavior.
Regardless of how nice the other person may seem, Davis said, it's important to remember the person is still a stranger -- and after a night of drinking your judgment becomes impaired.
If you are interested in the person, Davis recommended exchanging phone numbers or e-mail addresses and making plans to get together later on. If the person persists, tell the manager or bartender and alert your friends, he said.
Stacia Murphy, former president of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, said that a night out involving alcohol or drug use can produce four results that could leave a person open to a predator.
1) Impaired judgment
2) Lowered inhibition
3) Out of control behavior
4) Unpredictable effects of alcohol.
According to experts, young women are particularly vulnerable to an attack if a date rape drug is slipped into their drink. Murphy's advice to teens was plan and simple: "Teens shouldn't be drinking."
Still, teens do.
Another former NYPD law officer, Gerry Kane, now a director of Excel Security, said it is also important to be careful when leaving a club or bar at the end of the night. He and other experts suggest leaving with the friends you came with. He also suggested that young people consider making arrangements beforehand with a reputable limousine service or designated driver.
If you must take a cab, be sure that it is a licensed one -- and one that comes to the entrance of the establishment, he said. Never accept a ride from someone in a private vehicle who claims to be a livery cab service, he added.
Kane, Murphy and Davis all offer advice that seems to fall under common sense, but common sense and alcohol do not often go hand in hand.