BETHESDA, Maryland (WUSA)--On any given night in our area, word of an underage drinking party is just a police radio call away.
Over the last two months, 9NEWS NOW learned that firsthand, by working closely with Montgomery County Police.
READ: 9News Now Coverage Of Underage Drinking
On a cold December night, we were riding with police when officers received a report of teenagers drinking inside a Bethesda home. The party started with rumblings on Facebook, within a matter of hours, it had spiraled out of control.
When 9NEWS NOW arrived with police, teenagers scattered. Running from all sides of the house and bounding down the stairs of an outside balcony.
"Hey! Hey! Everybody! Pay attention," yells one officer. "Does everyone understand what happens when you run from me or any other officers? Stay down," as the officer forces a young man down who tries to get up. "Relax! You get up again, I'm gonna put you down again!"
What appears to be blood on the stairs is actually a crushed pomegranate, but teenage girls with mini-skirts and mascara-stained faces start to cry and scream.
"Everybody chill out! Everybody shut up! If I tell you to call your Mom and Dad, you're gonna call your Mom and Dad," says the officer.
On this particular night the party was in Bethesda and involved students from Walt Whitman High School, but it could have unraveled in any suburban neighborhood where an unsuspecting parent is out of town or simply leaves an empty house and an unsupervised teenager.
"You know how many other crimes are occurring right now in the County, in this area, that we could be dealing with?" questions another officer talking to some teenagers sitting on a curb outside of the house. "And yet we're dealing with 70, 80, 90 juveniles who decided to get high and drink."
Police handcuff teens that attempted to flee and line them up at the curb. Some are belligerent, combative. Their venom in some cases, directed at us [9NEWS NOW].
A defiant teenage girl criticizes police for sending so many officers to respond to an underage party.
"So when your house is being broken into in a couple weeks, you can blame it on an underage drinking party as to why police officers aren't there as quick as you'd like them to be," the officer tells the girl. "When your car is being taken, that's why."
The smell of marijuana fills the air. Roughly 80 teenagers left the house in shambles.
An officer tells 9NEWS NOW, "It looked like it was ransacked."
Police issued 35 alcohol citations.
"Empty liquor bottles. Beer cans. We found some drug paraphernalia in there," says Officer Rick Latifov.
Most of the partygoers are 16 years-old; five years from the legal drinking age.
A night of chaos gets more interesting when parents come to pick up their children.
A few simply hug their sobbing daughters, but many more mouth off at police, threaten lawsuits and question that their children were doing anything illegal.
"You actually saw her drinking?" asks one father of an officer.
"No, but it was on her breath. She took a preliminary breath test and she blew a .019....She's got alcohol in her system. She admitted to it. There's also drugs inside the house."
Some children refuse to reveal their identities.
Many parents arrive angry and disgusted- not at their intoxicated children, but at police and on this night, at us [9NEWS NOW].
"Why is there a camera filming these kids?!" asks one mother.
Only one mother appears furious at her son. "You cannot do what these children do, you understand that?"
She makes her son apologize to every police officer on the scene.
One parent asked 9NEWS NOW if this bust was a joke.
At another party, a father asked his child in front of police, "Why didn't you run?"
Something unusual happened after this party. In a controversial move, the principal of Walt Whitman High School, Dr. Alan Goodwin, punished many of the students who attended this off-campus gathering. An interview with Dr. Goodwin on 9NEWS NOW at 6am on Friday.