Home » DUI Arrest Procedures
By Michael
The U.S. Department of Transportation is kicking of this year’s campaign against drunk driving with some new data gathered about the habits of drivers when it comes to alcohol.
One piece of data gathered from surveys released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration indicates that 8 percent of all drivers have driven drunk in the last year.
That translates into around 17 million people when applied to the population of drivers in the U.S.
The NHTSA’s campaign, called “Drunk Driving. Over the Limit, Under Arrest,” focuses on keeping drunk drivers off of the road. The campaign will include a law enforcement crackdown that will run from now until Labor Day.
Police agencies from all over the country will step up DUI enforcement as a part of the campaign. Their efforts will be aided by $13 million in radio and TV advertisements put out by the NHTSA.
“Drunk driving is deadly, it’s against the law, and unfortunately, it’s still a problem,” said Secretary Ray LaHood of the NHTSA.
“With the help of law enforcement around the country, we are going to continue doing all that we can to stop drunk driving and the needless tragedies that result from this reckless behavior.”
According to the survey data collected by the NHTSA, four out of five people said that drunk driving was a major threat to their own life and to the lives of their families. One out of five people had driven a car within two hours of drinking alcohol over the last year.
Another part of the survey made the distinction between those who said that they had driven within two hours of a drink, and those who hadn’t.
Among the first group, it was determined that they drank more frequently than members of the second group. Among members of the first group, a little more than 25 percent of them said that they drank alcoholic beverages three or more days per week.
The survey results were troubling to law enforcement in part because of the habits that it showed among younger people, and especially among younger males.
Those 16 to 20-year-olds that admitted to driving after they drank said that they drank almost six alcoholic drinks in a sitting. This was not necessarily before they drove a car, but rather it was a generalization about their drinking habits.
Nonetheless, in the eyes of the NHTSA, it shows that should a young person make the poor decision to mix drinking and driving, the drinking side of things is likely to be in the extreme.
Drivers aren’t the only concern. The more drinking that goes on, the more likely it is that someone will be a passenger while a drunk driver is at the wheel.
The survey results indicate that 8 percent of the population that is 16 or older rode with a driver who they though might have drunk too much alcohol to drive safely.
Surveys like this are conducted periodically to keep a tab on the public attitude towards drunk driving.
By Michael
An elementary school teacher at an elementary school Florida will not be returning to her classroom after she was arrested for DUI. She is also accused of threatening the police during the stop.
Joann Tomas taught third-grade Spanish at Dr. Williams Chapman Elementary school, according to the Miami Herald. She won’t be returning to her regular duties after the incident. Instead, she has been reassigned to an office work position while the case plays out.
Tomas was pulled over on suspicion of DUI in early August by police who saw her car swerving through traffic. When they approached her SUV, police noticed that Tomas appeared to have “watery eyes, flushed face and slurred speech.” She also had difficulty locating her driver’s license, and lost her balance while she was getting out of her car. In order to walk, she had to steady herself on the car, the report said.
Tomas managed to threaten one of the police officers, the report indicates, before she was arrested, handcuffed and taken to jail. According to that report, Tomas threatened the officer by saying “I am taking your job. I am going to say you took my shirt off, lifted my skirt and touched my (expletive).”
Tomas’ combative behavior did not end with those remarks, however, police say. They say she also, at the jail, managed to work her way out of the handcuffs she was wearing and throw them at an officer, who she then allegedly kicked in the groin area.
In response, the officer Tased Tomas in the chest. That didn’t stop her, though, as she got up and tried to punch the officer, who Tasered her again.
More kicking and punching ensued as officers did what they could to restrain the feisty teacher after her DUI arrest.
Not to be deterred, Tomas continued to make offensive and threatening statements. “I am going to take your jobs,” she is reported to have said. “I have a Jewish lawyer.”
Also noted were additional racially disparaging remarks made to police officers.
Tomas is disputing the reports by officers, saying that she was “unnecessarily roughed up,” as the Miami Herald puts it. “All my knees are bruised from putting me on the floor,” Tomas stated.
She did admit to cursing at the officers, but said that she hadn’t eaten for 12 hours at the time she was pulled over.
By Michael
Jamie Hicks was driving erratically when her daughter called police from the backseat of the car to report her mother driving drunk with herself and her 10 year old brother in the car.
Hicks was driving down I-84 and was weaving in and out of traffic. According to CNN, Hicks’ daughter was frantic the first time she called, because her mother was “driving erratically and speaking incoherently.”
The cell phone cut out, which prompted 911 operators to call back several times, trying to reach Hicks’ daughter so that the car remained monitored. By the time, they managed to contact her again, all they heard was an argument.
Hicks was apparently furious at her daughter for telling the police about her intoxicated state. Thankfully, the car was pulled over by this time. Operators for 911 were able to locate the cell phone signal of the vehicle and the police arrived soon after.
According to the New York Post, Hicks made some admissions to the police about the fact that she had been drinking. Her blood alcohol level was .18, which is more than twice the legal limit of .08 in New York State.
Hicks was charged with a felony DUI for violating Leandra’s Law, a New York statute that makes driving intoxicated with children in the vehicle a felony. She has been released on $2,000 bail and is due back in court next month. The children have been released into their grandparents care, according to ABClocal.com
Stephen Hicks, the grandfather, is quoted as saying “The family is very grateful my granddaughter had the common sense to make that call . . . The situation is — how can I put it — a terrible lapse in judgment.”
Hicks had been driving her children back from the grandparents home in the first place. The drive between Southbury, Connecticut where the grandparents live and Brewster, New York, where Hicks was arrested is about 45 minutes long.
Regardless, this twelve year old girl is incredibly brave to go against her mother and do what was best for everyone in the car. Police will not be releasing the tapes, but they do recognize the fact that if more children “told” on their parents there may be fewer DUI crashes.
The bottom line is that if you see someone behaving as though they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, do not let them behind the wheel.
By Michael
An Illinois DUI judge threw the book at 25-year-old Edward Clark after he hit and killed David Long and his dog Shadow, who were out walking early one morning last year.
The judge convicted Cook of reckless homicide, 15 counts of DUI, and one count of unlawful possession of a converted motor vehicle back in May.
Cook was driving down the residential street at a speed of about 50 miles per hour in Batavia, Illinois when he veered off the road and onto the sidewalk, hitting Long and Shadow. Cook was driving a 2003 white Ford Acura that he had borrowed from a friend without permission, according to CBS 2 Chicago.
The toxicology report showed that Cook had alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine in his system, reports the Chicago Tribune.
Cook maintains that he does not have a problem with drugs or alcohol, but his driving privileges had been revoked in 2008 due to an aggravated DUI. Cook was still on parole for that offense at the time of the crash.
Cook also has numerous drug, battery, and theft charges, but has never actually completed one of the sentences for these crimes.
The judge took that into consideration during the sentencing. The judge felt that since Cook doesn’t feel that he has any problems, he should be kept off the streets in order to keep others safe at the very least.
Long’s wife and the Illinois state prosecutors pushed for more, but the judge said case law would not support a charge of first degree murder. Instead, Cook will serve consecutive, rather than concurrent, sentences, leading to a full amount of jail time of fifteen years. He will probably be out on parole in 10 years.
Cook refrained from making a statement to the judge, but did tell his mother that he loved her as he was being led out of the courtroom. Cook has never publicly apologized for killing David Long and his best friend.
Susan Long is satisfied with the sentence, but notes “this is another one of those stories that starts with drinking alcohol and ends with tragedy.”
By Michael
The police often find themselves in unexpected – and sometimes dangerous – situations, especially when it comes to DUI arrests.
This week featured a number of unfortunate interactions between police and those charged with drunk driving.
In Massachusetts, a trooper was hit by a car driven by an allegedly drunk driver, and it sent him to the hospital. He was recently released from the hospital, but the driver will face arraignment in court, according to the News Telegram.
Captain Frank Hughes was in an intersection directing traffic around midnight after a concert and fireworks show on the fourth of July. The crash threw the trooper onto the hood of the driver’s Nissan Maxima. The driver did not stop for the trooper, even after he caused what a spokesman called “serious injuries.”
Franklin Morales, the alleged driver, faces charges of DUI, negligent driving and DUI causing serious bodily injury. According to the charge, the driver went straight instead of heeding the captain’s traffic directions. Morales registered a .15 blood-alcohol content, and failed field sobriety tests.
Also in Massachusetts, a man stopped and arrested for DUI was also charged with kicking a trooper and threatening him.
John Ross tried to run away from police on foot after he was arrested on Interstate 81. He was described by police as “very combative.” When he was taken to the hospital, he screamed profanities at the hospital staff.
There was also the threat that he made to police, who said that he “made a comment about shooting” the trooper who arrested him. Ross was charged with aggravated assault, terrorist threats, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, DUI, public drunkenness and harassment, according to Public Opinion.
A Pennsylvania man faces DUI and aggravated harassment by a prisoner charges after he repeatedly spit on the officer who arrested him for DUI, according to the York Daily Record.
Ross Eugene Bricker almost hit Officer Thomas Kibler’s patrol car in his pickup truck. Kibler stopped him, and Bricker admitted to drinking and failed a field sobriety test.
Then, as Kibler was driving Bricker to the booking station, Bricker allegedly spit at the officer, hitting him in the top of the head.
By Michael
In Prince William County, Virginia, a DUI arrest turned into a counterfeit currency bust when police discovered that the two men being arrested had three odd-looking $100 bills in their possession.
According to the Washington Post, police nabbed the two men on what they thought was a routine suspicion of drunk driving stop. When the police officer searched the men, though, he found several $100 bills that didn’t look quite right.
What tipped him off was a message written next to Benjamin Franklin’s head that read “BILLETE DE LA SUERTE ALASITAS.” According to the Washington Post, it denotes the bill as a good luck ticket for the festival of Alasitas, which is a festival held every year in Peru and Bolivia. At the festivals, bills of this kind are handed out widely in casinos and elsewhere.
Apparently these bills are available on eBay, from a seller operating out of England.
The officer determined that the bills were counterfeit, and police investigated the strange bills further. They found that the driver’s friend had even more of the bills, and when they searched his house they found 59 more.
According to the U.S. Secret Service, these bills have appeared in the Federal Reserve Bank 125 times. In other words, someone has accepted this type of bill as real currency at least 125 times over the years.
Federal prosecutors were not interested in pursuing the case of the drunk drivers who were caught with counterfeit cash, so instead the county will handle the case. County police were not aware of the bills actually being passed as real anywhere.
One man, Jose Portillio, got charged with drunk driving, refusal to take a Breathalyzer test, possession of fictitious bank notes and possession of a false work card. The other man, Ronald Virto, was charged with possessing more than ten fictitious bank notes, passing fictitious bank notes, and drunk driving charges.
Many times DUI arrests lead to additional charges. This appears to be one of those cases, when one offense clues police onto another and a DUI suspect must answer additional charges, too.
By Michael
In Encinitas, California, a North County Transit bus driver has been accused of drunk driving while operating a county bus, KFMB-TV is reporting.
David Joseph Costello already has a history of alcohol-related offenses when he was hired to be a bus driver for the county. Now he faces accusations that his blood-alcohol content was six times the legal limit defined for commercial vehicle operators. This limit is more strict than those of private drivers.
Costello was arrested for DUI after a passenger on the bus that he was driving called 911.
Emily Knudsen was riding the bus on her way to work when she noticed the driver, Costello, behaving oddly. According to her account, he was stopping the bus irregularly, for no reason that she could determine, and at one point he even pulled the bus over, stepped out and urinated in the bushes.
“I told [the police dispatcher] I just got off a bus with a driver I thought was intoxicated or something,” she told KFMB-TV.
After Costello returned from the bushes, he was allegedly staggering. The officer that pulled over Costello and investigated noted that he smelled a strong odor of alcohol.
“I saw his right eye was almost completely closed,” said Deputy Brenda Wiebe. “His movements were very slow and his speech was slow and slurred.”
Costello failed a field sobriety test and a field breath test. He registered a .25 percent blood-alcohol content and a .26 percent blood-alcohol content. Both of these measurements are well over the .04 percent limit placed on commercial drivers.
Costello’s history of alcohol-related offenses goes back to May, 2008, when he was cited for drinking in public in Oceanside and then again a few days later in Escondido. A source also told KFMB-TV that Costello had other alcohol-related offenses that were no longer on his record because they had happened more than a decade ago.
In many cases, a DUI record prevents someone from being hired for a professional driving job.
The county hired Costello via First Transit, a private subcontractor that is in the process of taking over the bus operations in the district. A spokesperson from First Transit said that Costello had passed all of the necessary criminal background checks before he was hired.
By Michael
We have heard before about how a DUI arrest leads to a suspect getting in more hot water about additional crimes. But this story features a suspect who led police directly into the heart of another of his allegedly illegal associations.
In Gwinnett County, Georgia, one suspected crime led to discovery of another, as a DUI suspect led police on a wild chase to a house serving as the headquarters for a marijuana growing operation.
According to authorities, Charles Byrd was fleeing police after they tried to stop his green Chrysler Sebring when they saw that the driver had broken several traffic laws.
Byrd did not pull over, though. Instead, he jumped out of his car towards a home off of the highway. He ran into the house and locked the door. Police called in back-up to address the situation, and they surrounded the house.
Byrd soon came out of the house, but the end to the stand-off wasn’t the end of the case. Police smelled a strong odor of marijuana coming from the house when Byrd came out, and he was arrested.
As they were dealing with the arrest of Byrd, police found another occupant in the house, Timothy Donahue, hiding from them.
Police obtained a search warrant to investigate the home, and when they did so they found 69 marijuana plants in different stages of the growth process. They also found almost 1,500 grams of already processed marijuana and equipment used to cultivate marijuana.
All told, the marijuana that was confiscated had a monetary value of more than $327,000.
Charles Byrd, who had led police to the pot hideout while evading the consequences of a different offense, was charged with DUI and possession of marijuana with the intent to sell. He was also charged with driving with an expired tag, driving without headlights after dark, making an improper turn and driving without a driver’s license with him.
Donahue also faces charges surrounding the intent to distribute marijuana. He had an outstanding warrant in another county as well.
Both of the men are being held at the county’s detention center as police continue to investigate the marijuana growing operation.
By Michael
Richard Simard, one of New Hampshire’s state liquor commissioners, was arrested for driving while intoxicated recently after being pulled over and refusing to take a Breathalyzer test.
As a result, Gov. John Lynch removed Simard from the liquor commissioner’s office, according to an article in the Concord Monitor.
While Lynch agreed that Simard was innocent until proven guilty, his refusal to submit to testing was not appropriate. “It is simply unacceptable for a liquor commissioner, stopped by the police on suspicion of driving under the influence, to refuse a Breathalyzer test,” he said in an email statement. “Under the circumstances, Richard Simard’s continued presence on the Liquor Commission would compromise the integrity of the Commission.”
When Simard was stopped by officers at 11:30 on a Saturday night, they smelled alcohol coming from his BMW. Officers had received a tip that a drunk driver might be headed their way, and they pulled the car over when it matched the description provided. Officers followed the car and noticed that it was being driven erratically, so they pulled it over.
They asked Simard to perform a field sobriety test, and after he refused to take the Breathalyzer they arrested him on charges of DWItitle. He was charged with speeding and released on $1,000 personal recognizance bail.
Police also noted that Simard did not answer any of their questions during the arrest.
Simard had been on the Liquor Commission since July of 2008 to fill the term of a commissioner before him who had retired. That initial term expired in 2009, but Simard remained in holdover status. This status allowed the governor to remove him from office at any time.
The New Hampshire Liquor Commission, according to the article, “regulates the manufacture, sale and consumption of alcohol in the state and operates the state stores that sell wine and spirits. It also enforces the state’s liquor laws.”
Sales of alcohol through the commission reached almost $500 million, and provided more than $100 million in profit to the state of New Hampshire.
Simard has owned several businesses in New Hampshire, and said at the time of taking office that he hoped to streamline distribution networks, improve stores and raise profits on alcohol sales.
By Michael
According to a report by The Providence Journal, a police officer in Rhode Island was killed while on a DUI patrol when he was struck by an alleged drunk driver.
Officer Michael Troia was parked in his police cruiser on the lookout for DUI suspects when a man who was later charged with DUI slammed into the cruiser. Troia was on patrol specifically for the purpose of nabbing the very type of suspect who would come right to him.
He was taken to the hospital after the accident, where he was treated and released. He will not be at work for a few days after the incident, to fully recover before returning to duty, according to the Providence Police Department.
Officer Troia was working overtime as a part of the Blue Riptide program, in which grant money from the state’s Department of Transportation goes towards policing potential DUI offenders. Troia’s overtime pay was coming from this specific fund.
Officer Troia had pulled over another driver for a moving violation that wasn’t associated with driving under the influence, and was writing out the ticket in his own vehicle when he was struck. He called for help, which arrived in the form of a fellow officer, who spoke to the driver of the Toyota Corolla that had collided with the police cruiser.
Michael O. Mageau was driving the car. According to police, there was a strong smell of alcohol emanating from Mageau. When asked how the accident happened, the driver said that the police cruiser must have pulled out in front of him.
When informed that the cruiser had been parked with its overhead lights on, the driver claimed that “Well, it must’ve stopped suddenly then,” according to the police report.
When asked if he had been drinking, Mageau replied, “Of course I have.”
Mageau could not perform field-sobriety tests when requested from the police, and police let him stop so that he wouldn’t hurt himself. Mageau was charged with drunk driving, refusing a breath test and failure to maintain control of his vehicle.
