One fall evening, around 8:00, I was driving along on one of the main streets in the city where I worked and observed a car following another car extremely close. There were only a few feet between the two vehicles. I turned on my overhead red lights and siren as I drove behind the two vehicles. The two vehicles turned into a bank parking lot and stopped. I stopped my vehicle a few feet behind the rear vehicle. I contacted my dispatcher and advised of the license plate number of the rear vehicle and the location of the stop. I got out of my patrol car and walked toward both vehicles. I saw a woman sitting in the driver’s seat of the rear vehicle. I told her I stopped her because she was following the vehicle in front of her too closely. She responded something to the effect” That’s my husband, he’s drunk and I was following him close to be sure he got home okay. He’s been at the American Legion all afternoon drinking.” I told her to stay sitting inside her vehicle while I walked up to the front vehicle to talk with her husband. While I was walking up to the front vehicle I advised the dispatcher of the front vehicle’s license plate number.
A middle aged man was sitting in the drivers seat. I asked him for his driver’s license. He had difficulty getting the license out of his wallet. I observed his bloodshot eyes and smelled the odor of intoxicating beverage on his person. (Alcohol does not have a smell. What we smell are additives to the beverage. Defense attorneys usually jump on officers when they say they smelled the odor of alcohol.) The man had slurred speech. I asked him to get out of the car and he was very unsteady. He refused to take the field sobriety test (Walk a relatively straight line, touch fingers to nose, say the alphabet) In most states, possessing a drivers license means you have already agreed to submit to the test. I advised the man he was under arrest for driving under the influence. I searched him, incident to an arrest, and placed him in handcuffs and helped him into my car.(Searches incident to an arrest are for the safety of the officer in case a suspect might have some type of weapon hidden on them, and also allows contraband /drugs on them to be found. We handcuff, again for the safety of the officer and also to prevent an officer from injuring a suspect and using the excuse the suspect attacked them.) The wife locked the car the husband was in. She planned on driving her car home and then return and drive the husband’s car home.
I drove the suspect to the police department. On the way he kept telling me he was going to make me work for this arrest and conviction because he had too many previous DUIs and one more and he was going to lose his license. The man refused to submit to Breathalyzer test. He continually reminded me I was going to work for this one.
The case was tried in city court and the man was found guilty of driving under the influence that he appealed to the county court. The case was tried in county court and the conviction was upheld. My observation of his behaviors, appearance of his eyes, the way he stood, and walked etc., enabled the conviction without the field sobriety and Breathalyzer. The defense attorney “grilled me” and tried to make me make mistakes in my testimony. It also helped that I had a “good track record” in both courts because my observations and interpretation of suspect behavior aligned with Breathalyzer results in other DUI cases.
Alcohol, I’ve seen destroy so many lives in so many different ways. People lose their jobs, their families, and their homes. People lose their lives to drunk drivers. From history we know prohibition doesn’t work.
How can we as a society prevent alcohol from ruining so many lives in various ways? As a society do we have a responsibility to do so?
Until Tomorrow,
Sally S.
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