
Originally Posted by
C27H40O3
absolutely correct. You described the problem completely and gave egregious examples of police misconduct. You should have sued the cop for false arrest and denial of your civil rights. You are allowed to drink in your driveway. He didnt observe you driving drunk.
That blood test shit sucks. They dont have that ridiculous shit in my state. How can the government be allowed to do something as invasive as a blood test just to check compliance with a vehicle and traffic law? In my state, if you refuse, you will get your license suspended for a period of time. A judge would have to sign an order for a blood test, and that is only if there are serious injuries involved, never in the absence of an accident with injuries.
The DWI arrest has developed for two reasons, one is financial, the second is psychological.
Firstly, Over the last 25 -30 years, going back to when all this DWI hysteria started, thousands upon thousands of cops have become accustomed to the easy Overtime from a DWI arrest to pay their mortgage, and live above their means. Its too easy to just go out, pull someone over late at night, and make them blow. Two weeks later you have a few hundred bucks more in your paycheck.
The second reason is more nuanced. Many small police departments, apparently like where Gearhead writes about, have a police force that never gets to play cop. they never get to feel like the real cops they see on TV shows. they never to get to put the cuffs on someone and feel like they are catching bad guys. It bothers them. Never get an opportunity to feel like crime fighters, except for one type of incident, a DWI arrest. Thanks to DWI enforcement, they get an opportunity to feel like they are real cops, pulling folks out of the car, cuffing them, searching their car, fingerprinting them, and generally walking someone around in cuffs. In so many small towns and quieter areas, such as Mayberry, the cops never get to put their hands or handcuffs on anyone if it wasnt for a DWI arrest. They went for decades just being Barney Fife on a slow day. Their self esteem is lifted by pretending that they are fighting crime by catching outlaws, but in reality they are visiting misery on a harmless motorist.
Thanks to the national push for DWI arrests, assisted by federal money for checkpoints and DWI task forces, and multi-agency holiday operations, small towns and police departments have filled their coffers with funds related to DWI enforcement.
It is a new cottage industry. Proceeds from the sale of confiscated cars. court fees, fines, supervision fees, kickbacks from interlock companies to pass laws and and then get awarded the contracts to put their monitoring devices in defendants' cars. Kickbacks to lawyers for referring clients to unnecessary counselling. Counselling centers bilking insurance companies for unnecessary treatment. DWI classes. Driver responsibility fees assessed and collected for the government. Probation fees, insurance company surcharges. the list goes on and on. It has become an industry, and it criminalized two generations of americans.
It is a total scam, perpetuated and instigated by that fraudulent non profit of mad mothers. They started this whole bullshit.
You younger brothers have no idea how it used to be. Cops would make you walk home, throwing your keys in your trunk. or tell you to come by the precinct the next day to get the keys. they used to save arrests for real criminals. small town cops were happy serving the residents instead of alienating them by arresting them, all to pay their mortgage or feel like a big man.
I always drove in a big city since i learned to drive. DWI was a non issue. the cops had enough to do with real crime, they didnt bother with nonsense like that. Some of my friends growing up became cops. And we all got stopped growing up and were told to walk home. My man said, in the early 1980's when he was first a cop, if you brought a DWI or domestic violence arrest in, you were mocked by the boss and asked if you were afraid of the street by wanting to stay inside with a bullshit arrest. It was a great time to be young.
We could drive out to the adjacent suburban county and hit night spot after nightspot. The county was loaded with them. They were all open until 4AM and there were plenty of women looking to hook up. It was great. Now, they are all gone. DWI enforcement destroyed the local nightlife industry. Folks became so deathly afraid of getting stopped and having their life disrupted for a decade that they stopped going out. There was a thriving economy, which is now gone. Restaurants and diners used to depend on the late night crowd to stay in business. many closed now. its dead out there at night now. The cops, by being greedy, killed the goose that was laying their golden eggs.