It's been a year since Breathalyzers disappeared from the District, and now some inebriated drivers may be getting a free pass. In February 2010, the city admitted it goofed on some 400 breath tests after a technician made flawed adjustments to devices used by the Metropolitan Police Department. Philly has had similar problems.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that, according to the police union, 2011 has seen a 40 percent drop in Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol arrests, compared to the same time last year. Currently, cops are issuing sobriety tests (as in making drivers walk the line). Drivers are asked to consent to giving a urine sample  if they fail.

A police official speaking on the condition of anonymity believes he knows why there are fewer drunk driving arrests being made. Some police officers have no idea where to take suspects to collect their urine. Some think they should bring them to a hospital; others think they should take suspected drunks to the station. "It's just a learning curve for everyone to get to understand and start getting the percentage back up," he says.

MPD officials think everyone should be on the same page. Written protocols have been "distributed agency-wide," police spokesperson Gwendolyn Crump says. Crump didn't answer a request to explain how the testing works. Court records connected to two DUI arrests this weekend show that accused drunk drivers were taken to police station holding cells to have their urine tested.

Internal MPD documents say that up until April 8, after having a cop (of the suspect's gender) watch suspects give urine samples, the urine was sealed in a container, and the arresting cop had to go through the trouble of  driving the urine to the Forensic Science Services Division on V Street NE. Last weekend, station cell blocks were equipped with refrigerators that housed the  samples, cutting out the delivery part of the officer's responsibility.

The containers are now picked up and ferried by MPD's Impaired Driver Support Unit to the Office of the Chief  Medical Examiner's office for testing. Still, the process, which involves fooling around with bio-hazards, is time and manpower consuming—not to mention awkward.

It's also slow. Defense attorney David Benowitz tries drunk driving cases and is familiar with the process. Benowitz says it usually takes about 90 days to get the results. That's opposed to a Breathalyzer, which gives instant answers. It's easy to see how this urine sample "cluster-fuck," as one officer calls it, could discourage cops from making DUI collars.

But another official doesn't think confusing or cumbersome urine sample protocols are to blame for the drop in DUI arrests. He has a different theory: Cops have lost confidence in the cases.

"Officers don't like to have their cases dismissed," he says. The official says that since the trouble with District Breathalyzers emerged, cops have been wary about wasting time trying to get a DUI arrest prosecuted.

As far as Benowitz is concerned, the skepticism is warranted. Urine analysis isn't dependable. "Here's the issue with the way the tests are conducted," he says. "Urine that has been sitting in your bladder for an undetermined period of time is being tested. All that result can tell you is that at some point, a person had alcohol in their urine." In other words, a person can easily be more, or less, drunk than the test shows. Some lawyers even advise their clients to take a urine test instead of a breath or blood test because it's easier to challenge in court.

No matter whether urine tests will hold up in a courtroom, it's clear the District needs to get its act together on its new Breathalyzer program, which is ready to go but is currently being put off because the city can't figure out who'll run it. MPD Chief Cathy Lanier wants the medical examiner to be responsible, but the office says it doesn't have enough resources. The city has already brought $90,000 worth of now-languishing equipment, and each urine test costs $75, so the bureaucratic stalemate has become expensive.

In the meantime, an enforcement effort that keeps D.C. streets safe to cross has become a strain on cops.

Photo by Elsie esq. via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0 Generic

Tipsy Tenth: Ever feel like the drivers around you are incompetent or blind? Turns out, they're probably just drunk. A AAA Mid-Atlantic survey finds one in ten drivers admits to driving drunk in the last year alone. Since only die-hard drunk drivers are likely to volunteer to a AAA researcher that they've done it, odds are that figure is actually much higher. And now, in order to muster the courage to brave the potentially dangerous bike ride home surrounded by drunk drivers, we're off to start drinking. -3

Baby Boom: The animals at the National Zoo are, apparently, mating like, well, animals. The year's already seen lion cubs and baby anteaters; now comes word of baby cheetahs. Both Amani and Zazi, female cheetahs, gave birth to cubs earlier this month at the zoo's research facility in Front Royal, Va. At this rate, zoo officials may have to hand out birth control pills to humans visiting the park, just in case. +2

Shuttle Shuttered: These days on H Street NE, it's not at all uncommon to see cabs with Virginia plates dropping off fares. Which is why news that the H Street Shuttle is closing down is unlikely to make much of a splash. Sure, years ago, the bars in the neighborhood needed all the help they could get to convince people who didn't live nearby to venture that way. But now? It only carries about 6,000 people per month, which works out to 200 a day; since the X2 and X9 Metro bus run the same route, the shuttle seems superfluous. After all, some Saturdays, you can find 200 people just waiting in line to get in to some of the bars. +1

Virginia is Not for History Lovers: When a history textbook used in Virginia schools reported the previously unknown fierce loyalty of southern black soldiers to the Confederacy, it apparently set off some alarm bells in the Old Dominion. Educators combed through the text and—surprise!—found more errors, though few of them were quite as glaring as that one. Remember, Virginians: Those who don't learn the lessons of history are doomed to go through life even more misinformed than most other Americans. Which is pretty misinformed, indeed. -2

Yesterday's Needle rating: 67 Today's score: -2 Today's Needle rating: 65

Just before the Fourth of July, the organizers of SoberRide managed to scrape together the $31,000 they needed to keep the program running. MillerCoors kicked in $15,000 (which, presumably, it'll make back this weekend, one silver bullet at a time), and GEICO and anti-drunk driving group the Century Council each ponied up $5,000. The Restaurant Association of Washington chipped in $2,000.

Of course, there's no guarantee you won't have to wait several drunken hours for the free ride home. Still—happy birthday, America!

According to the latest NHTSA roadside survey, drivers caught with blood alcohol concentrations above the legal limit fell to 2.2 percent in 2007, compared to 7.5 percent in 1975. 

Until 2007, the feds were only equipped to measure boozing – 0.08 blood alcohol concentrations or higher mean you are legally drunk. But now, the NHTSA has spiffy new screening techniques that detect drug use too. Of the nighttime weekend drivers tested in 2007, 16.3 percent were on drugs – mostly marijuana, with cocaine in second place, followed by prescription pills, the NHTSA says.

Yeah, but how scientific is a survey of 300 stops nationwide?  What about all those others who weren’t caught up in the dragnets, would they be more likely to be drugged or smashed? And, the NHTSA has segregated out the "nighttime weekend" druggies, while the boozing data apparently includes stops at all times of day and night. Perhaps the announcement's true intent is to put drug users on warning that toking and tweaking no longer goes undetected.

At the end of May, Shadow Senator Paul Strauss suddenly decided to plead guilty to charges stemming from his drunk driving arrest. It was an interesting move considering that he had long fought the charges, even delaying his proceedings in D.C. Superior Court so he could hunt down an expert witness. The incident had proven to be quite an embarrassment for the city official—not just for the drinking-and-driving bust itself but for his conduct with the police (he showed off his senate ID; Third District cops were not impressed).

Strauss has not issued much in the way of a public apology for his conduct. There's been no teary press conference, no photo up with MADD. Other officials have at least gotten with the program and admitted their mistakes when caught over the legal limit (like this guy and this guy). He refused to return calls for comment at the time of his guilty plea. Nor had he offered much in the way of an explanation immediately following his arrest.

City Desk finally caught up with Strauss this afternoon. Strauss could not have been less interested in talking about his DUI guilty plea. Don't expect any Public Service Announcements from the Shadow Senator any time soon. This is a guy who wishes he could just blackout the whole incident.

When asked about how he felt about his guilty plea and his case being closed, Strauss replied: "We're putting it behind me and moving on."

City Desk: Was there any lesson learned?

Strauss: "That's really all....[rambling to the effect of a no comment]."

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 City Desk: What happened with the Expert Witness?

Strauss: “We just decided to put this behind me and move on. Thank you for your interest.”

The Shadow Senator then hung up.

After his guilty plea, we wrote:

Strauss received a 60-day suspended jail sentence, 11 months of supervised probation, a $300 fine, and $100 fine to be paid to the victims of violent crime compensation fund. As part of Strauss’ supervised probation, the shadow senator must “abstain from the use of hallucinatory or other drugs, and submit to drug testing….,” according to court documents.

]]> http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2009/06/17/paul-strauss-wants-to-move-past-drunk-driving-arrest/feed/ 7 http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2009/03/20/paul-strauss-dui-trial-postponed-to-june/ http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2009/03/20/paul-strauss-dui-trial-postponed-to-june/#comments Fri, 20 Mar 2009 20:08:15 +0000 Mike DeBonis http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/?p=18685 LL was all pumped and ready for the Trial of the Century—that, of course, being the adjudication of Shadow Sen. Paul Strauss' October drunk-driving arrest.

The trial was scheduled for Monday morning in the courtroom of Superior Court Judge Marisa J. Demeo, but alas, the drama must wait: Strauss' lawyer filed a motion Monday to postpone the trial. It's been rescheduled for June 3.

In her motion, attorney Claire Morris Clark argued that the city had been tardy with a discovery request—a review of which would be necessary "in order for Mr. Strauss to evaluate his trial strategy and decide whether to proceed to trial or consider attempting to reach a disposition in the matter." Once the discovery was provided on March 6, Strauss sought "potential expert witnesses," but none were available for Monday—thus the continuance request. The government did not oppose.

Clark declines to say what sort of expert witness her client expects to call: "Not going to tell you that just yet," she says.