Did they let you drive yourself to the station? Let you ride up front with them uncuffed? Or were you cuffed and stuck in back of the car because “our insurance policy only covers people cuffed in the back seat”?

You mean i learned to walk on my hands, tap dance, juggle, and sing the Catalina Magdalena Lupensteiner Wallabeiner song for nothing?

The only thing that keeps a lot of these small towns running is the police dept. It's a straight up business.

Until the police start getting put in "federal fuck me in the ass prison" for these kinds of egregious abuses of power, they'll keep doing it.

When we drive through those small TX and FL towns and see those speed traps, this is the first thing that comes to my mind.

Different both times.  MD I was in the back cuffed, released at the station immediately, friend picked me up.  Just 30min of aggravation.  TX I was put up front, cuffed, arrested, booked, and spent the night in jail waiting for the blood test results.  Judge saw me first thing in the morning and released me.  I WAS SUPER PISSED and let everyone know about it.  I got nothing but eye rolls.

This is stupid, but I understand the sentiment.  I feel like this is a good example of where people should be made whole after the fact.  But lets face it, you see someone swerving all around, driving dangerously, pupils dialated, but they blow a 0.00 for alcohol any prudent officer would arrest them on suspicions of being on some other drug.  

Hell, even in my case where I was tired and fell asleep at the wheel arrested, in retrospect it was STILL prudent to get me off the street.  I truly was a danger to others even though I wasn't DUI.

As a manager, I was doing a ride along once, and we had an accident.  A Sheriff's deputy administered a breathalyzer to us.  After doing the first guy, he came to me and said "in your statement it sounds like you've been with these guys all day, is that 100% correct?"  I'm like "yeah".  He asks a couple more questions and then shows me the BAC result.  It was .21 or something.  I was like "yeah, I've seen guys come up with a BAC when I didn't know they were drinking, but this isn't one of those times".  So he calls another deputy down who showed up within a couple of minutes, and they tried a different one.  .000. We all went down to an ER and did breath/urine as well.  Nobody had been using.  

The device is obviously not 100% accurate.  I wonder how many guys went to jail on that inaccurate device.

If someone encounters 1000 people and only shoots 6 of them they are 99.4% good at not shooting people. Is that acceptable for you?

There is a small town in California called Kern that a lot of traffic has to pass through from CA to AZ or NV and vice-versa. It is/was literally famous for this. There was even a saying, "Come on vacation, leave on probation." They got a slap on the wrist a while back, but of course no punishment was ever served. The DA and everyone was in on it.

If you’re acting intoxicated for any reason you shouldn’t be driving, right?

Plenty of folks have been jammed up while blowing 0.0, cops just switched to "it must be drugs"

You understand that people lose their livelihood when they die, right?

TON of projection in this thread.

Also, an attorney who is making fun of the police who are getting it right over 99%.

And, people who are saying that one misarrested person is too many.

Meanwhile

My buddy's Mom got centerpunched by a fucking drunk last night. I'd put a picture of her poor van up but it will fall on deaf, drunk ears here.


A few random thoughts that no one will pay attention to, but I am going to share them anyway.

- In TN, a lot of agencies are handing DUI stops off to the highway patrol now.

- In TN, I have personally seen officers in the last three years using non-standard SFS tests. I asked one, why, and was blown off. (I was a reserve deputy at the time, what did I know?)

- In TN, it is pretty hard to get a conviction on first time DUI. The attorneys have gotten it down to a science, and get a lot of things suppressed now that absolutely should not be. HGN is inadmissible in a few counties around here.

- In TN, I personally have arrested multiple people for over tenth offense DUI. We used to have a thing called Habitual Motor Offender. I guess it offended too many, and that got taken away.

- We used to be able to seize their car and do a lot of stuff. There are so many hoops and steps to go through now that many officers just don't have the time to properly do all the steps. You hook up a driving drunk, you are done for most of your shift. Which is a Bad Thing if your jurisdiction only has three people working. So, that's why THP is getting called in more and more. They don't get the call volume, so they can deal with working night shift, then going into court in the morning to see the defense attorney call for a continuation at the last minute.

- the National SFST has three phases. If you are stopped, you are in phase II. This means you were driving like shit to begin with. HINT: You can be drunk and high as you want; if you drive without touching the center and fog lines over and over, you'll never get stopped.

Fewer agencies in TN are using the Machine anymore; preferring to get blood pulled if there is a hospital nearby that will play along. There is no point because most people found guilty have booze, prescribed pills, and perhaps a weed product in them. Can't stand up without assistance, blows 0.0. (shrugs)

The number of shitbag, incompetent police officers will continue to climb. As TN departments get away from TCRS and into other retirement programs, there is no real benefit to policing as a profession, and a LOT of reasons you can lose everything. Few police in TN get to retire, anyway. The only way to 20+ is finding a way off the road. Good luck with that.

You driving drunk and drugged are still a fucking scourge though.

That's unfortunate.  Would arresting more sober drivers have avoided that?

Well that's not true.

That is how that argument sounds. In baseball, .500 means they miss half the time, right? HALF THE TIME THEY MISS.

Good thing law enforcement has so many checks and balances, huh

Will was an overstatement.  Can or may would be more accurate.

What objective evidence do you have of a positive HGN?

In my job, something like a pending DUI, drug charge, etc. will get you taken off any sensitive IT work.  That's a job killer.  Might as well quit and start mowing lawns.  If it were rectified in a day or two, no big deal.  One month?  No way.

Some issues are that certain intoxicants/drugs are not included in a tox screen unless requested. When you have an unk substance, it is a gamble in getting the tox screen done.

There is ZERO reason why there are that long of delays in testing. People have a right to a speedy trial and the delay for a misdemeanor case should be pushed by everyone arrested.

What a beautifully malformed argument. Allow me to respond in kind: yes.

IF a ton of people were getting arrested in mass impaired driving sweeps, the number of people driving impaired would drop for fear of being arrested.

Exactly like saturation patrols. Except instead of digging through the book to find a reason to arrest people with long criminal histories in high crime areas who have been warned not to be out, using your idea, we would just arrest with no probable cause. (shrugs)

Now, you tell me: driving impaired and harming others is still a major pasttime in the region where I live. It is so common, you don't even need investigating skills on a friday night, you just need math. One two three... that's a drunk. One two three... there's another.

How do we select the people that are going to cause an accident due to being impaired with 100% surety on the side of the road?

[Deleted]

They are either so impaired that it's beyond the pale or one has to accept the choice:
- Arrest a percentage of sober drivers, the amount depending on society's risk tolerance.
- Don't arrest questionable drivers, knowing that some are going to get through.  Perhaps you can gather evidence and arrest them later.

You can teach a robot to pick out the cues.

It is not subjective.

A consistent lack of smooth pursuit in either eye.
A consistent onset of twitching before the halfway point.
A medical history that precludes anything pathological that would cause this behavior.

it is simple. It is beautiful. It is hard to beat in court. It is the number one thing a defense attorney will get suppressed, neck and neck with on-scene video.

Having said that, there are a percentage of people that cannot (or are too lazy to do it) correctly.

Try it at a party next time. That's how I got good at it, I would line up six people at a time, and then we would redo it periodically throughout the night.

But the only proof is the officer's interpretation of the motion and what he writes in the report, correct?

Totes agree.

Problem is, attorneys have ruined that.

Now, if you let a questionable person loose (and, believe me, I have), and they go wreck, you get sued. They kill someone, you might get indicted.

Because of attorneys, now, if there is any doubt, there is no doubt, and let the legal machine decide.

(Oh, and to a lesser extent, supervisors watching your camera footage and armchairing you. I've cut hundreds of PI cases a break over the years. Try working around a major SEC college campus)

The 1% had allergies (red eyes), balance and coordination issues, an attitude, smelled of marijuana or otherwise triggered a police investigation.

I don't believe for one second that they were arrested to generate income.

up until the 90's.

Now both sides can hire an 'expert' to watch the BWC and argue back and forth. No reason it should not be on camera with the rest of the tests. The cues are either there or they are not.

I do hope you’ve made sure that second one is off your record, or at least correct.

In my experience, even old arrests for driving w/o seatbelt can end up in your federal rap sheet and can cause issues years later.

I got pulled over in WA for a brake lamp out.  The officer asked me if I had been drinking, he appeared to be no older than 25 or so, I told him I stopped drinking alcohol before he was born.  He chuckled, and told me to get the brake light repaired.

The problem isn't the officers doing their job properly it's the outliers who make the news when they have a dozen plus DUI arrests of people who are all completely sober who their boss stood behind till the local media picked up the story and he was fired then we find out he's still a POST certified officer now working at another dept. To me this indicates a cultural problem of passing off accountability from the people who can take our freedom. It doesn't give the public the warm and fuzzies to think about things like that.

“When is the last time you smoked marijuana?”

Do BWCs provide enough fidelity to observe HGN?

Can you cite examples of this happening when there wasn't clear impairment observable?

Because as written it sure looks like "Fuck the public, I'm not going to accept any risk."

Well that's because they have done extensive test studies over the years of people's impairments at various BAC levels. And they found that the average person is pretty impaired at .08. Not everyone will be, if someone drinks a lot, they probably barely feel anything at that BAC. But we gotta have the same rules for everyone. It's just a good idea not to drink and drive. I will sometimes have a drink or two if i'm at a restaurant and then drive. But I would never exceed 2 drinks before driving and its usually actually only 1 at the retaurant. 2 is pretty rare.

bet you or average person couldn’t pass FSTs sober. and i’m talking about one you’ve NEVER had administered, not one you’ve given 50-100x before so you’ve memorized it.

look at FWC, no way someone sober can remember 4 steps with all the mumble jumble.

There are a lot of medical conditions people have that can cause someone to automatically think they are impaired.

Nope. Not off the cuff.... well, seems like there was a knoxville city officer that cut a guy loose that blew through a stop sign or something a few years back.

And, yes, you're right. The insurance companies like the Tennessee Municipal League absolutely look at it that way. So do many ADA's. They want to be able to decide, not the officer on the side of the road.




I can watch VCR tapes from the 80's and see it. Give me ten minutes to teach you and you can, too.





Sounds like a lot of layers all failed conveniently. Doesn't sound like a common issue, because you only embarrass the DA a couple of times before he starts saying to your boss you can't bring any more DUI cases or they are going to do something about it.

You are going to see more incompetence as the talent pool shrinks though. it is terrifying to contemplate.

I would go and get a independent blood draw and test asap.

Last time I had a DUI test I was able to recite the alphabet backwards prefectly. He actually stopped me at M and said ok that's enough.  What ossafer didn't know was I had already practiced this just for this occasion.  Most of the tests are easy to beat if you practice before hand, unless you are really really drunk.

I've been unable to find any cases with some searching.  If this was a real problem I would suspect it would be easy to find at least one.

Insurance companies and ADAs aren't making the arrests.  Accept responsibility for your actions.

Did your car get towed or was it left on the side of the road waiting for you to come back?  Did they drive you back to your car when they were done?  How much did that cost you?  Some people aren't ARFCOM rich and unexpected expenses make a big impact on their life.

Same.

I am to brain damaged from 3 brain surgeries, 20 years of cancer, two strokes and a bunch of other issues....

Really???

sometimes people don’t & cops will STILL make up PC. that whole, creative writing course & all…..

Lick the boot citizen!

reverse alphabet isnt a SFST and wouldnt get you anywhere for developing PC for a DWI arrest

Around here you are asked if you have any medical conditions/injuries that prevent you from doing a given test. If you say that you do; that test isnt given

Indeed

Never ever take the sobriety test, you are going to be arrested anyway at that point