By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Princeton police said this week they are continuing their investigation into whether alcohol was served to minors at the now infamous Jews vs. Nazis beer pong game that Princeton High School students had played at a private residence.
Police Lt. Jon Bucchere said Thursday that the probe has been going on since last week after police got an anonymous tip. On Monday, Princeton Council President Lance Liverman said the students were at the home of a prominent family in town, but he declined to name names because the case involved minors.
No further details have been released in the wake of a story that sparked a media frenzy and raised concerns within the school district.
A photograph depicting young men and cups arranged in a star of David and a swastika first emerged on the Internet. The image shows one young man, in a red baseball cap turned backward, pouring two cans of Coors Light into cups arranged on a table. Others are seen in the background.
The photo originally was posted on the social networking site, Snapchat. A Princeton high school student, Jamaica Ponder, daughter of former Princeton mayor Michele Tuck-Ponder, then wrote about it on her blog.
“This is indefensible,” she wrote. “You can’t make excuses for stuff like this, just like you can’t make excuses for the KKK or 9/11 or the slaughter of 6 million people. Some things are just bad, and this is one of them.”
According to the Internet site Drinkinggamezone, the game involves the “Jews” team arranging their cups in the shape of a star of David, while the “Nazis” team arranges theirs in a Nazi symbol. One of the rules of the game says that when the game starts, the “Nazis” players get to “blitzkrieg” or shoot “until they miss.”
The story, first reported by online site Planet Princeton, led the school district to express its concerns.
“We are responding to this incident as educators. Any disciplinary discussions in this case remain confidential, as they always do,” said Superintendent of Schools Stephen C. Cochrane in a statement April 8. “We are counseling the individual students affected by what happened.”
Mr. Cochrane said that Holocaust education is already part of the district’s curriculum. He said the rabbi of the Princeton Jewish Center had met last week with PHS Principal Gary Snyder.
“The issues of underage drinking, misuse of social media, and of bias and intolerance are not new or unique to Princeton,” Mr. Cochrane said. “We have been — and will continue to — address them honestly and forthrightly.”
The town said this week that it would have a forum May 18, in the Witherspoon Hall municipal building, on the legal liability people face for allowing their homes to host underage drinking. The event was being planned ahead of the discovery of the beer pong game, Mr. Liverman said.
