Pullling duty at Walter Reed ended up causing trouble at home

Barrington father hopes his ‘mistakes’ will teach others

01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, April 23, 2009

By Linda Borg

Journal Staff Writer

BARRINGTON — A contrite John Place said his son was wrong to allow teenagers in his house while he and his wife were away recently and added that he hopes that parents and teenagers will learn from his mistakes.

“I am not going to make excuses for my son,” Place said in an interview Tuesday night. “He was wrong, and I regret leaving him home alone. He has screwed up before. He should have known better.”

On Friday, April 10, more than 20 youths, many of them minors, turned up at Place’s house on Sowams Avenue and allegedly threw a party in his basement.

When the police arrived that night, they could hear music and laughter coming from the basement, and, when they opened the exterior bulkhead door, they said that the smell of beer and alcohol was overwhelming.

But when the police contacted Place by cell phone and asked for permission to enter his house, he refused. Police Chief John M. LaCross said that his officers could not enter the house without permission unless they believed that someone’s life was in danger.

Place came under heavy criticism on the Internet and on talk radio this week because he left his 19-year-old son, Corey, home alone while he and his wife, Susan, spent the beginning of the Easter weekend in Maryland.

Place wasn’t on vacation. Rather, he said he had been called to active duty at the Walter Reed Army Hospital, where he is a psychiatric nurse who helps wounded soldiers recover.
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Barrington father hopes his ‘mistakes’ will teach others