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You Drink, You Drive, You…Get a Free Ride Home

Monday, August 30th, 2004

While regular people get have their lives ruined for as little as one drink before getting behind the wheel, cops get away with shit like this:

A Newport police officer is under investigation by his department after Fort Thomas police stopped him for suspected drunken driving, and then allowed him to be driven home without charges being filed.

Newport officer Mark Crank was stopped at 1:23 a.m. Aug. 10 on the Interstate 471 ramp to I-275 west. A Fort Thomas police video shows Crank repeatedly refusing to take a field sobriety test and being uncooperative.

“You were all over the road, sir, OK?” Fort Thomas police officer Adam Brown said to Crank in a video recorded by his cruiser’s dashboard camera. “I mean you almost wrecked this car three times while I was following you. In fact, at one point you were just an inch from going off the road back there.”

Fort Thomas police said they allowed Crank’s sergeant, whose name was not available, to drive him home almost an hour after the stop…

…”You’ve not just had a little bit to drink tonight,” Brown said at one point. “Your speech is extremely slurred. You’re having problems standing there. You almost wrecked your car several times.”

…He will not face criminal charges, both Liles and Fort Thomas police said.

Wonder how many people Crank has busted for DUI?

Thanks to reader Malcolm Piersall for the link.

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 30th, 2004 at 10:52 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

9 Responses to “You Drink, You Drive, You…Get a Free Ride Home”

  1. #1 |  michael |  August 30th, 2004 at 12:35 pm

    special treatment from cop to cop is nothing new radley.

    just consider it a de minimis fringe benefit and move on.

    dont get me wrong, pisses me off big time, but there is not much than can be done about it.

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  2. #2 |  doc tom |  August 30th, 2004 at 2:12 pm

    wanna drink and drive?

    go to cop school.

    mike

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  3. #3 |  Ms. Dani |  August 30th, 2004 at 2:50 pm

    I blame gay marriage.

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  4. #4 |  Bronwyn |  August 30th, 2004 at 3:36 pm

    I blame COPS. The show, that is.

    Why would somebody prattle off all those details to somebody who is supposedly drunk and not really listening anyway? Was he putting on a show for the camera/recorder?

    Boy, do I sound paranoid.

    I blame gay divorce.

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  5. #5 |  Jon Riegel |  August 30th, 2004 at 3:45 pm

    Cops are like any other worker – they get an employee discount.

    Here’s the most surprising part of the article:

    “The 50-minute video recorded numerous exchanges between Brown and Crank during the stop. Fort Thomas police released the video Thursday.”

    I doubt this event is very unique – but the police department actually releasing video documenting their own blatant corruption sure is.

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  6. #6 |  Rocketman |  August 30th, 2004 at 6:52 pm

    And ya know–we never had ANY of this before Bush was President!

    Hmmmm.

    The bastard!

    I’m voting for Nader–hope all those Kerry supporters out there do the same!

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  7. #7 |  Cynic63 |  August 30th, 2004 at 8:51 pm

    Hooray!! My communist regime is working already. BWAAHAHAAHHHAAAA

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  8. #8 |  Rich |  August 31st, 2004 at 5:14 pm

    That’s because Cops are better than you. Do ya think the ice cream guy pays for his ice cream? Grow up. As long as they come when you need them, give them a break.

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  9. #9 |  scottp |  September 1st, 2004 at 6:37 am

    Rich,
    Why don’t you get a clue.
    Cops should be held to the same standard as everyone else.
    If you think that it’s ok for cops to have a different set of rules, fine, that’s your opinion.
    But don’t expect everyone else to “grow up” and accept it just because they show up when you need them.

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