More than 600 sober drivers arrested for DUI in TN

[Henry Every]

Well thats NOT cool!

https://youtu.be/x7dWEL0Puq4?si=PLUCvepLlfcpxEin

[jog49]

There must be a law enforcement money shortage in Tennessee! Maybe kickbacks from DUI lawyers! Who knows.

[One Man Gang]

I live about 3 miles from Tn state line and though I’ve never had one I can tell you Tennessee is strict as h€ll on any alcohol related charges. Just had a buddy get arrested up there this past Saturday night for DUI and they tacked on driving on suspended license, implied consent, 7 counts of possession of firearm while under influence, open container while driving, no insurance and no seatbelt. Dumb son of a b!(th is still incarcerated over it too. Now replying to the topic at hand it’s always been talked in and around the state of Tennessee that they use breathalyzers that has been modified to read higher than normal or some cases just charge people with DUI and claim it was their word against the other. Also knew a guy years ago that got charged for DUI and he was riding in the passenger seat. So to say Tennessee has a shady record when it comes anything alcohol related is very correct.

[Morgs153]

I did the job for 30+ years and I arrested plenty of OWI cases, in the hundreds, and I maybe had one come back just under the limit and that was because the lady did just so terrible on the field tests and she was an inexperienced drinker. That case may have even been dismissed in the end but she was all over the road and couldn't find her butt with two hands.

Just from that limited report I can identify a few things and surmise a few others.

These types of things are a series of "building blocks". Vehicle in motion, is there bad driving behavior and indications from erratic operation. Things like wide turns, not stopping at stop signs, not dimming lights, swerving, following right on a fog line, speed indications (too slow, too fast, changes up and down in speed) and the list goes on. Pulling someone over for a simple headlight out is a nose in the vehicle but often not enough in itself. Making a quality stop over just making a stop is part of the building blocks.

Operation. Having physical control over things to put the vehicle in motion. This is how sometimes a passenger can fall into a trap of operation because they demonstrate manipulation of vehicle controls. Ticky tack but sometimes useful when people try to switch positions.

Driver appearance, actions, and mannerisms. This is where you notice breath odor, speech, fumbling for documents like license and registration, glassy or bloodshot eyes, pupil size etc.

Then field tests. These are divided attention tests (usually now standardized across the nation). The first is a Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN) eye test where you track the eyes with the head still. You're looking for - 1) smooth pursuit 2) nystagmus at maximum deviation 3) onset of nystagmus before 45 degrees. This is a good indicator test and a person cannot prepare or fool this one.

One thing I noticed in the video was doing the HGN into all the flashing lights. That is problematic because of something called opti-kenetic nystagmus which can produce a false reading. We always did HGN with subject facing away from flashing lights and our cars were equipped to shut the front half lights off for this reason. That was documented in the report and demonstrated on video.

The next standardized tests were a walk and turn test and a one leg stand. There are many things to watch in these and I won't go into them in detail but they were designed to be divided attention tests and there were factors to be scored. Now I always asked for a recital of the alphabet. Just simple A,B,Cs, nothing tricky like going backwards. I can tell you that most of my arrests would screw that up and when given multiple chances they would screw it up again and again. It was hilarious at times.

There are other field tests which can be employed when suspecting drugs or poly impairment. We always used a PBT in the field and those instruments were always calibrated and the documentation of calibration was recorded. There was no - getting things to read higher than normal. So if the person's field tests were bad, but the PBT was low, you suspected drugs being involved as well. Makes sense right? Our primary test was always blood and secondary was Intoximeter, which was also calibrated (by the instrument at the time of use). No funny business there either because if it failed calibration the test was invalid.

The thing I see in this Tennessee piece is just plain unethical. This comes from the top and they are trying too hard. There is obviously pressure on the Troopers to make the arrests and they are making flimsy ones. Maybe there is some failures in training and how practitioners are interpreting their clues and that can be addressed in better training but I think it is more like pressure from the powers that be. They want numbers and they demand numbers and maybe numbers are connected to funding. This is not quality law enforcement when these kind of things are happening. Tennessee must be fertile ground for OWI defense attorneys. Are attorneys paying certain officials because there could be a gravy train chugging along? You'd have to really be able to prove that one.

I was blessed. For my career I worked with ethical people and we took pride in that. I did the job on the road, I was a training officer, a sergeant, and then a lieutenant before I retired and if we were to make the mistakes like I see in that report, it would have been corrected. We did participate in grants for traffic enforcement and the state people would always preach about their wishes and wants but if it wasn't there, it wasn't there. I administered those grants for my agency for several years and I always told my guys - make the stops, make the contacts, but don't be cheap. If it isn't there, it isn't there, tomorrow is another day. We always met our grant requirements and we never had to lower our standards to do so.

[Morgs153]

I want to clarify something and give a little grace here. I wouldn't go too far down a road of suggesting something sinister or corrupt because that's just often not the case. Remember Occum's Razor. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. OWI (DUI) detection has become a little bit harder in the last several years. In the old days it was much easier to detect and get those folks off the road because let's face it, drunks were drunk. Most people not even in law enforcement could easily spot a drunk.

Nowadays you have legal pot almost everywhere and today's legal pot ain't what it was in the 70s. You have lots of other drugs, both street drugs and the Rx variety. You can have a Venn diagram of different things that lead to poly impairment. More folks are on Rx today than ever before, especially drugs to treat maladies of life. Many of those carry the do not operate ... warning labels but do they always follow those instructions? Do not mix with alcohol. Oh you bet that gets followed by everyone, right? So when you combine things like alcohol (a digestive process) with legal or illegal drugs (a metabolic process) it can make easy roadside detection a bit more difficult. It forces many agencies to go down the road of training up drug recognition experts (DRE). We had a few trained up before I retired and it is an expensive proposition for an agency but today almost a necessity. Get better training. I'll be honest folks. Police candidates aren't what they used to be but that can be said for a lot of jobs.

Here's a another thing which I hope is not a reason. Liability. They don't want to stop someone, let them go, and later have that person involved in a wreck and video shows where they did had the person stopped and checked before that wreck. Now we all know a person released from a stop can go off and start drinking or using drugs right after that stop but deep pockets are the ones who get sued. No pockets are deeper than those funded by taxpayers. I would hate to have the reason for bad arrest decisions based on - screw them (citizen), I'm getting them off the road and if they aren't impaired they can hire a lawyer and sort it out later because I'm not taking the liability for a decision. That's wrong. You don't put innocent people through that.

It's not a perfect world but they have to do better. That 600 number is problematic.

[Henry Every]

I'd insist on a "Legal blood draw" right there and refuse all discussion and field testing of any kind. Lets go straight to hospital, "NOW".