Comments on: Law Enforcement and DWI

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:46:41 +0000

From the Westchester County article, spoken by the local MADD chapter president, Carol Sears…… “These are the people who are supposed to be protecting all of us,” she said. “We put our trust in them to keep drunk drivers off the road, and it turns out that when they’re the drunk drivers, they’re being protected by other police officers.”

A little late to the party, I’m afraid. Maybe now she might be more skeptical of the number of DWI arrests these cops make and the methods they use to get them…..in order to make things look good and to win “Supercop of the Year” awards from organizations like hers. She might, and monkeys might fly out of my butt!

By: SJE

SJE — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:22:30 +0000

Whether you fight fair or not is beside the point: its whether someone started the fight with you.

Apparently the deceased boyfriend had previous court appearances for domestic violence and was known to be a bit of a dick. Sounds like the sort of person with a short fuse.

By: Charlie O

Charlie O — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:07:39 +0000

I repeat my previous statement. Cops are scumbags.

As to the Wisconsin story, as wise old biker myself, take heed, don’t fuck with real scooter folks. Learn the difference between your average weekend warrior Harley rider and bikers. Don’t fuck with the bikers. We don’t fight fair.

By: Law Enforcement and DWI | The Agitator | Mr. DUI's Blog

Law Enforcement and DWI | The Agitator | Mr. DUI's Blog — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:26:37 +0000

[...] post: Law Enforcement and DWI | The Agitator Tags: agitator, dui, even-ask, feeling, get-caught, problem, some-people, the-feeling, the-first, [...]

By: Law Enforcement Double Standard for DUIs, DWIs and Other Alphabetic Offenses « Ex-Pat Ex-Lawyer

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:42:28 +0000

[...] 8, 2010 · Leave a Comment Radley Balko’s criminal law post today, Law Enforcement and DWI , provides a roundup of a national hall of shame on this unsurprising topic of police and their own [...]

By: SJE

SJE — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:41:55 +0000

If you read the Wisconsin story, the first telling is that bad boy biker can’t take a joke and kills people. The follow up significantly modifies it.
Now its off duty lady cop goes into a biker bar, pinches bum, biker glares, boyfriend escalates, biker waves gun, feels threatened, kills people, who turn out to be cops. Its like a bad SWAT raid, except in a social setting.

Police think that they can do no wrong
Invade a person’s privacy
Person objects
Police up the ante, without identifying themselves as police
Person shoots police
Person gets blamed, police are heroes.

Its an unfortunate story, but I really hope the biker gets off.

By: Marty

Marty — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:31:48 +0000

shit like this makes me want a beer…

By: Michaelk42

Michaelk42 — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:04:54 +0000

Yeah, Jennifer Luick became an hero alright.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=an%20hero

“Police officer Jennifer Luick and her boyfriend Gregg Peters were killed in Wisconsin after she pinched the wrong man in the butt”

Now THERE’S the caption you don’t want on your last picture in the paper ever.

By: Luke

Luke — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:03:05 +0000

Mr Balko, by chance are you taking David Codrea pills? I'm not complaining. :)

By: Frank

Frank — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:38:10 +0000

Whatever happened to that cop who created a false arrest on a lawyer’s wife because the lawyer went after the cop’s DUI arrest?

By: Eric Crampton

Eric Crampton — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:47:17 +0000

Same thing in New Zealand....

The average conviction rate for all drink-drivers in the past three years was more than 95 per cent, compared with less than 38 per cent for police officers.

By: arglebargle

arglebargle — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:21:06 +0000

It’s stories like these that make me wonder what the Alexandria chief of police did to make the Arlington cops give him the DUI. He must have been a royal prick.

By: David

David — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:54:36 +0000

Not really related, I was a little creeped out Audi’s “Green Police” commercial last night. Partly because the idea of police conducting sting operations for choosing plastic, kicking down the door to look for incandescent bulbs, having roadblocks for emissions seems too realistic; and partly because we must take all these all showcased tactics for granted.

By: Michael Pack

Michael Pack — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:28:11 +0000

Another thread that seems to run through these stories,the cops accused have,in most cases,caused an accident or drove recklessly.As for the ‘civilians’ wrongfully aressted,none are charged with reckless driving.I would think that would be the reason to stop them in the first place,absent a accident

By: Pablo

Pablo — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:56:00 +0000

I agree it is a scam and DUI law is shot through with gross constitutional violations. Defense attorneys don’t talk about the “DUI exception to the constitution” for nothing. I liken DUI laws to domestic violence laws–society ignored both problems for decades, then overreacted in the extreme so that a lot of innocent people are getting caught up in the dragnets.

By: Yizmo Gizmo

Yizmo Gizmo — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:38:11 +0000

The whole DUI has become a scam from beginning to end.
It used to be .15 then .12 then .10 ; now even admitting you had
a glass of beer will get you in trouble.
It has little to do with impairment, despite the fact that
“Impairment” is the criterion.
Not to mention cops rubberstamp the evidence, strong odor
of alcohol, glazed eyes, same old lines.
What a perfect scam.
Special mention for the cop reading notes from the witness stand when independent recollection would be required for other crimes.

By: pegr

pegr — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:34:28 +0000

There is no such thing as a good cop.

By: Parker

Parker — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:30:23 +0000

“Professional courtesy” definitely goes well beyond cops.

When I was a summer intern at a law firm, we had an end of the summer dinner at a restaurant in a nearby suburb. It was the summer interns and a bunch of partners, and just about everyone was drinking liberally. It was one of those “we spent HOW MUCH on wine?” business dinners. I was drinking Diet Cokes because I had driven, and I kept thinking “how are these people going to get home?”

At the end of the night, one of the partners handed out some business cards. They weren’t his firm cards, though: they were cards with the name and logo of the town we were eating in, with his name on it as the general counsel of the town. He very flippantly instructed everyone that he knows all of the police officers in this town and if anyone gets pulled over they should just drop his name and hand over his card. It was quite literally a get out of jail free card. I was genuinely shocked by how open this was, and how willing everyone was to just take the card and drive home.

I know people at this site are skeptical about DUI laws and their enforcement, but more than one of the people at this dinner had no business driving. I think the problem is that DUI law has changed some people’s analysis from “should I be driving?” to “will I get caught?”, and when someone has the feeling that they are untouchable they won’t even ask the first question and will get in the car.

By: pierre

pierre — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:21:37 +0000

A drunk off duty cop near me in wisconsin decided to play grabass with some biker in a bar, he takes offense, she (the cop) tries to get her husband to beat up the biker. he pulls out a gun and shoots them both.

She is somehow a hero or something. She is from a town 30 miles from where this happened and was obviously going to drive home drunk.

http://www.truecrimereport.com/2009/12/andrew_wirth_kills_officer_jen.php

By: SJE

SJE — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:13:57 +0000

How is asking for “professional courtesy” not straight out corruption?