BARRINGTON -- The body of the 17-year-old boy who fell from a kneeboard while being pulled by a motorboat into the Barrington River last night was found this afternoon.

Journal photo / Mary Murphy

Searchers ply the waters of the Barrington River near the command post set up at Walkers Farm.

Authorities today confirmed the identity of the victim as Patrick Murphy. He would have entered his senior year this fall at Barrington High School.

Fire Chief Gerald Bessette announced the body was recovered at about 2:45 p.m. in the water in an area in the vicinity of Town Hall on County Road, but closer to a nearby bridge after a search that began last night.

The body has been turned over to the state medical examiner's office.

Bessette expressed sadness for Murphy's family but credited what he called the quick work of searchers, which included state police and search dogs.

The state Department of Environmental Management has charged the teen driver of the boat, Ryan A. Greenberg, 17, of 33 Lamson Rd., Barrington, with reckless boating and refusal to submit to a chemical test. Greenberg was arraigned before a justice of the peace last night and released to his parents.

The police said alcohol was a factor in the incident.

"We know that there was alcohol involved," Barrington Police Chief John M. LaCross said this morning, although he would not answer when asked if the missing teen had been drinking.

LaCross said alcohol was found on the boat and evidence has been "seized." He would not say whose boat Greenberg was operating, only that it was "a friend's."

Another 17-year-old was also on board the boat at the time.

The boy whose body was found had been missing since the incident at 7:30 p.m. last night. Searchers plied the waters of the Barrington River near the command post set up at Walkers Farm. After a massive search until about midnight last night with some 50 vessels, including private boats, and a Coast Guard helicopter, the search this morning along calm waters seemed low-key.

Both LaCross and Bessette said this morning they were holding out hope the missing boy could be injured and have pulled himself up on shore somewhere nearby. He was not wearing a life jacket when he fell into the water.

"I'm hopeful we're going to recover this boy," LaCross told reporters assembled this morning on the shore near the command center at Walkers Farm overlooking the river, just north of the White Church bridge.

LaCross said fewer boats were plying the waters for now, with trained state police dogs aboard. The dogs -- on at least two of the four boats on the water -- would be better able to pick up the boy's scent on calmer, less crowded waters, he said.

They were concentrating on a mile-long stretch north and south of the White Church bridge, so-called because of the landmark "white church" on its east side.

Journal / Frank Gerardi

The Barrington River flows into the Warren River and then into Narragansett Bay. The tide was moving at the time of the accident, Bessette said, went out and then began coming back in at 5 a.m. today.

Bessette said last night and earlier today that he believes the boy fell in behind Town Hall, just south of the White Church bridge.

Authorities had asked pleasure boaters to stay out of the area.

All of the teens are students at Barrington High School. School Principal John Gray was among those at the scene this morning. At the school library this morning, a moment of silence was observed by School Committee members and administrators, including new Superintendent Robert McIntyre.

Counselors were available at Barrington High School this morning to address student concerns, officials said.

The police asked anyone with information to call detectives at 437-3933.

Anat Cunha, who lives nearby and is the mother of a teenage boy she said is a close friend of the missing teen, watched the search from the shoreline near the command post.

Echoing what public safety officials said, Cunha said the currents in the area of the river where the teen went missing can be deceptively strong, especially further south of the bridge, beyond the command post.

Last night, the bridge was crowded with about 100 onlookers, many apparently friends or acquaintances of the missing boy.

Cunha said her son's friends called him from the bridge, and he left an emergency medical technician class to join them there. She heard a lot of commotion over by the bridge, including the whirring of a helicopter searching for the boy. It was out there "for hours," she said.

This morning, she felt drawn to the command post and told her son she'd be there to help in any way she could. She said she has participated in searches like this, when she was a medic. Today, she walked along the shore, fielding calls from family members on her cell phone and talking about the need for parents to be vigilant and strict to keep their children from underage drinking.

"As a mother, you know, that could have been my son," she said, with worry creasing her forehead.

"And when they find [the missing boy], I just don't want him to be alone," she said, looking out toward the water. " ... As a mother, I just felt very compelled to be here."

Barrington teens and alcohol were on the minds of public safety officials and Cunha this morning.

LaCross said that despite all the efforts in the schools and from coaches and teen mentors to discourage underaged drinking, the police need the help of parents. They must hold their children accountable and talk to them about the dangers of drinking, he said.

Cunha agreed.

"I don't know how many wake-up calls we need," she said. "How many kids do we have to lose before we get it?"

In 2005, Barrington grappled with another tragedy. Two Barrington High School sophomores died in a high-speed car crash on Nayatt Road. A third boy, who was a passenger, was injured. The police found a small bag of marijuana and unopened can of beer inside the wreck, but the police later concluded that there was no correlation between an underage drinking party the boys briefly attended and the crash.

Barrington, a town that regularly ranks at the top in median household income and average college-admission scores, is also number one when it comes to Family Court cases involving liquor-law violations by teenagers.

Since his arrival in Barrington as police chief in January 2002, LaCross has actively focused on cracking down on teen drinking. Now, the Barrington Police Department has an underage-drinking tip line. It uses state money to pay for "party patrols," in which officers go out on overtime to patrol areas known for underage drinking.

And it provides consent-to-search forms in which residents can give police permission to enter their homes if the parents are away and officers believe underage people are drinking there.

Between January 2000 and December 2006, Family Court handled 90 violations involving Barrington cases of possession of alcohol by a minor. That was double the next highest total; Warwick and Woonsocket each had 45 liquor-law violations involving teenagers during those years.

The figures do not mean that Barrington teens are hitting the booze any harder than youths in other towns, Family Court and Barrington officials say. Rather, they say, the statistics reflect the town's attempt to crack down on underage drinking and to change the assumption that downing alcohol is just part of growing up.

-- With reports from Journal staff photographer Mary Murphy and Journal staff writers Meaghan Wims, W. Zachary Malinowski, C. Eugene Emery and Edward Fitzpatrick