Authorities won't release Benson arrest audio

[nfoligno]

I know someone who failed a breathalizer test when he hadn't been drinking. I remember when I took a defensive driving class (after a ticket). The instructor was a former police officer. She flat out told us the breathalizer was imperfect, and that sometimes, other things could set it off. I remember he telling us a story of how a breathmint gave essentially false readings.

 

Now, this was probably 15 years ago, so the breathalizers may have changed quite a bit over time, but I am still not sure how much I would trust them.

 

Also agreed as to how subjective field tests can be. My brother-in-law (a pretty big guy) has passed tests when I know he should have never been driving (I knew he drove after the fact) and other times when people "failed" when they had little to nothing to drink.

[LT2_3]

I know someone who failed a breathalizer test when he hadn't been drinking. I remember when I took a defensive driving class (after a ticket). The instructor was a former police officer. She flat out told us the breathalizer was imperfect, and that sometimes, other things could set it off. I remember he telling us a story of how a breathmint gave essentially false readings.

 

Now, this was probably 15 years ago, so the breathalizers may have changed quite a bit over time, but I am still not sure how much I would trust them.

 

Also agreed as to how subjective field tests can be. My brother-in-law (a pretty big guy) has passed tests when I know he should have never been driving (I knew he drove after the fact) and other times when people "failed" when they had little to nothing to drink.

 

I was more referring to the verbal/physical variety:

 

Walk a straight line heel to toe - hard to do with a leg injury - a sprained ankle can cause failure when you're sober

 

Say the alphabet backwards - Who can do that when at peak mental acuity? Automatic failure

 

Close your eyes, tilt your head back, and touch your nose - a head cold can cause failure when sober

 

Ambiguous directions can cause failure - Someone is told to count from 1 to 4 and back down to 1 four times. Does that mean counting 1234321234 or does it mean 123443211234? Also asking for clarification is an automatic failure. Some cops consider using your fingers to keep track how many times you've said it as failure too

 

The thing is that a field sobriety test like that when you are pulled over in a car is more of a guide to determine whether a breathlyzer should be administered. This was somewhat valid back in the days when they didn't have portable ones in their cars.

 

In the case of when boating, they can't really do the physical tests because a moving/floating boat throws off balance. As for the verbal ones, the cops can consider any hesitation in speech a failure and require further testing. It's not so hard to think that some cops in that situation would consider it a formality and plan to fail someone on any old flimsy reason so they can do further testing on shore. That got short circuited when Benson wanted to know why they wanted to do further testing when he was able to pass all the tests that they had given him. That's when they pepper sprayed him - from what I've read.

 

When it comes to "resisting arrest", any time someone doesn't do exactly what the officer asks without question, it can technically be considered "resisting arrest". The problem is that for someone to be considered "resisting arrest" they actually have to be arrested for something for the "resisting" charge to be valid. So in this case, the point where Benson got pepper sprayed, there was no longer any question that he was going to be charged with something whether they actually thought he was drunk or not. They HAD to just to justfy their actions or else it's blatent police brutality. I personally think that the rest of the stuff that happened on the way to the squad car was an attempt to really piss Benson off so he would take a swing at them.

 

I'm looking forward to hearing the audio tape. Heck, it wouldn't surprise me if the prosecution try to enter a transcript of it in evidence instead of the actual tape so that interpretation could be far more subjective.

[AZ54]

Try being from Arizona and heading to a wedding in Chicago on New Years Eve and then getting pulled over on the way to the hotel at 0200. Do a subjective field test in the cold when it was snowing. Cops asked me "why are you shaking?" Well let's see, could it be that I'm used to weather in the 80's and it's near freezing out here?