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Mr. Conservative

You’re young and pretty, and you and your friends have just attended a rally educating you about sexual assault. After making a run for snacks and bottled water, the three of you get into the car and suddenly several men surround your car, screaming, and waving some sort of indistinguishable ID. One jumps on the hood of your car, one of them pulls a gun on you, and the others start smashing your car windows. What do you do? If you’re 20-year-old Elizabeth Daly, a University of Virginia student, you get the car in gear and get the hell out of there. And if you’re members of the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control office, you arrest Daly and charge her with multiple felonies.

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People are just starting to learn about Daly’s terrifying night on April 11. She and her two roommates were returning home after attending a “Take Back The Night” event on the UVA campus. The event included testimony from dozens of women who had survived sexual assaults and other violent attacks.

On the way home, Daly went to a Harris Teeter store in Charlottesville, Virginia, where they picked up college women’s food staples: cookie dough, ice cream, and bottled water. When they got to their car, plainclothes agents from the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control agency (“ABC”) suddenly surrounded their car. One jumped on the hood of the car and another drew a gun. The men screamed at the women to get out of the car. They did flash their badges, but the panicked women couldn’t tell what they were. Daly described what happened:

(Read More: Man Under Police Investigation After Shooting Home Invader Who Assaulted His Son.)

They were showing unidentifiable badges after they approached us, but we became frightened, as they were not in anything close to a uniform. I couldn’t put my windows down unless I started my car, and when I started my car they began yelling to not move the car, not to start the car. They began trying to break the windows. My roommates and I were…terrified.

Daly and her friends had only one goal: escape. She got the car in gear and raced away from the scene, as her roommates shouted “Go! Go! Go!” and flung themselves into the back seats to escape from the ABC agents pounding on the windows. The women frantically dialed 911 to try to find a local police station and to learn whether the agents after them were actually police.

(Read More: Cops In Texas Facing Punishment After “No-Knock” Raid Which Led To Gun Confiscation.)

Daly finally learned that the men were indeed ABC agents who thought that she and her friends had purchased liquor during “dry” hours, so she pulled over. When the officers caught up with her, she was profusely apologetic and explained her perception of what had happened. Nevertheless, the officers arrested her, charging her with two counts of assaulting a law enforcement officer (her car grazed two police as she drove away) and one count of eluding the police. These are Class 6 felonies that carry maximum penalties of 5 years in prison and fines of $2,500 per offense. Daly spent the next 24 hours in jail.

This Thursday, the State of Virginia dropped all charges against Daly. David Chapman, the Charlottesville Commonwealth’s Attorney stated that “It wouldn’t be the right thing to do to prosecute this.” Still he felt that, until the events of that evening were fully investigated, filing charges against her was the right thing to do.

(Read More: Woman Has Police Enter Her House Without Warrant Over Having Her Grass Uncut.)

We’re just wondering why an after-hours liquor arrest requires police to behave with such a high level of aggression towards three young women. The ABC agents apparently have nothing to say on that subject.