On Friday, February 10, 2012, a Seattle City Police Officer was arrested in downtown Seattle for DUI. This marks at least the third such arrest for a member of the Seattle Police Department within the last year alone. This entry really is not about rubbing it to the SPD. People get arrested for DUI. Good, generally law abiding people, with no criminal intent, get arrested and charged with DUI. It happens all of the time and a vast majority of them have never been in trouble before. Police officers are not immune for the possibility of a DUI stop and arrest. This entry is about high lighting what the arrested police officers in each of those cases did, or rather didn’t, do prior to being arrested. In each case, the arrested officer declined to perform roadside agility maneuvers (or field sobriety tests as they are also known) after being requested to do so by the arresting officer.
That’s because even the police know that it is not in the best interest of an individual to perform these “tests”. They are, at best, meant to trick and confuse the person into providing evidence against them that they are not required to provide. At worst, they provide a tool for the arresting officer to embellish and manipulate evidence that is largely out of the individual’s ability to control. So don’t just take it from a Seattle DUI lawyer when he says that performing roadside agility maneuvers are not in a person’s best interest. Taking it from actual Seattle Police officers.
