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DUI Charges Against 54 Dropped Prosecutors say a Polk County sheriff's deputy may have taken shortcuts in handling investigations. By Jason Geary THE LEDGER Prosecutors have abandoned charges against 54 people accused of driving under the influence, citing concerns about a deputy's shortcuts in writing reports and conducting blood alcohol tests. Deputy Tex Thomas has made about 124 arrests for DUI since he began working last year for the Polk County Sheriff's Office. In a deposition, Thomas spoke about preparing reports by cutting-and-pasting words from previous DUI reports as a "template" rather than starting with a blank page. Prosecutors also...

A 42-year-old suburban mom is in a detox facility Wednesday night after registering a .40 when police stopped her Tuesday afternoon in Inver Grove Heights. A shopper at the Cub Foods grocery store in West St. Paul called police after she saw the woman and her young son in the frozen food aisle. "He was saying mommy, I want to go home. Let's go home mommy,'" said a woman who called 911. "I went up to her and asked if she was okay and she didn't answer me. She was like stumbling. So, I had my instincts kicked in." A...

DULUTH, Minn. - A Minnesota man has pleaded guilty to driving his motorized La-Z-Boy chair while drunk. A criminal complaint said 62-year-old Dennis LeRoy Anderson told police he left a bar in the northern Minnesota town of Proctor on his chair after drinking eight or nine beers. Prosecutors say Anderson's blood alcohol content was 0.29, more than three times the legal limit, when he crashed into a parked vehicle in August 2008. He was not seriously injured.

A Minnesota man has pleaded guilty to driving his motorized La-Z-Boy chair while drunk. . . . Police said the chair was powered by a converted lawnmower and had a stereo and cup holders.

DULUTH, Minn. – A Minnesota man has pleaded guilty to driving his motorized La-Z-Boy chair while drunk. A criminal complaint says 62-year-old Dennis LeRoy Anderson told police he left a bar in the northern Minnesota town of Proctor on his chair after drinking eight or nine beers. Prosecutors say Anderson's blood alcohol content was 0.29, more than three times the legal limit, when he crashed into a parked vehicle in August 2008. He was not seriously injured.

Carmen Huertas Accused Of Driving Drunk With 7 Girls In Car; Daughter Pleaded With Woman To Slow DownSuspect Asked Children To 'Raise Your Hands If You Think I'm Gonna Crash' NEW YORK (CBS) - She promised another parent that the children would be in good hands. She even joked about it. But what happened next was no joking matter. Now a young girl is dead, a mother is under arrest, and families are devastated after a tragic accident on Manhattan's Upper West Side. A woman stands next to her critically-injured daughter's hospital bed Monday, hoping and praying she will make...

Determined to stop people from texting while driving, the Obama administration plans a campaign similar to past government efforts to discourage drunken driving and encourage the use of seat belts. The administration planned to offer recommendations Thursday to address the growing safety risk of distracted drivers, especially the use of mobile devices to send messages from behind the wheel. "We can really eliminate texting while driving. That should be our goal," said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, declining to provide specifics of the recommendations.

Police said a man was arrested on Monday for his 22nd drunken driving offense—and his blood-alcohol content tested almost five times higher than New Mexico's legal limit. State Police Lt. Eric Garcia said an officer pulled up to a car parked along a highway and found a 51-year-old man on the ground near his vehicle. "He was coherent," Garcia said. "He showed signs of slurred speech, as might be normal for any DWI arrest, which led the officer to believe he might be driving under the influence." Garcia said the suspect had to be taken by ambulance to Christus St....

OGDEN -- Was it a friendly group bicycle ride through downtown Ogden or a confrontational melee that included obstructing traffic, assault, obscenities and alcohol? Depends on who you talk to. Numbers vary from 35 to 70, but a large group of cyclists, referred to as Critical Mass, was taking a monthly ride to celebrate cycling and assert their rights to the road on Friday when Ogden police say things got out of hand. Four individuals were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, failure to disperse and public intoxication. Matt Hasenyager, owner of Skyline Cycle and one of the bicyclists, said...

LOCKPORT, N.Y. (AP) -- Police say a western New York tow truck driver was texting on one cell phone while talking on another when he slammed into a car and crashed into a swimming pool.

A jumpy cat caused a distraction, report saysHOLLYWOOD - After a Hollywood police officer rear-ended a car in February and then arrested the driver on drunken driving charges, he and other officers talked about doctoring the report -- it said a jumpy cat created a distraction -- to cover up the crash. The exchange was recorded by a dashboard camera in one of the patrol cars. The officers apparently didn't realize it was on.

Driving and using cell phones - we all know the dangers. But now, new evidence suggests it's not only dangerous, but deadly. Federal officials have long had the evidence that shows drivers on the roads, who are talking on a cell phone, hands free or not, are running the risk of getting involved in a deadly accident. Officials recommend talking on a cell phone while driving should only be done in an emergency. However, this evidence never saw the light of day. A long-term study the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration suggested to fully assess the threat was never done....

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- An actress who starred on the hit television series "Three's Company" has been arrested in Southern California and cited for drunken driving. Police said Joyce DeWitt, who played the character Janet Wood on the popular show, was pulled over Saturday afternoon after she drove past a barricade near a park in El Segundo. Sgt. Danny Kim says an officer arrested the 60-year-old DeWitt after he observed signs she had been drinking and gave her field sobriety tests. Kim says DeWitt was booked at the Police Department, cited and released on her own recognizance.

A former Muscatine County judge has pleaded guilty to his third drunken driving charge. James Weaver, 55, of Blue Grass, Iowa, is set to be sentenced Aug. 6, court documents indicate. Iris Frost, the case’s special prosecutor, will ask for incarceration, a letter in Weaver’s file indicates. Weaver’s attorney, John Wunder, could not be reached for comment. Weaver was arrested in March. He had a blood-alcohol-content level more than two times the legal limit for driving in Iowa, court documents say. Weaver had two prior drunken-driving convictions from 2002 and 2004. He received a disability retirement as a judge based...

NEEDHAM, Mass. – A Massachusetts man may wish he had breakfast in bed instead of in his car. Police said a man who was stopped for erratic driving on Central Avenue last week was eating a bowl of cereal and milk while he drove. He told officers he was hungry. ... Schlittler didn't know what kind of cereal the driver was eating.

Any T (Boston: Mass Bay Transit Authority) driver caught using a cell phone on duty will be fired on the spot, MBTA officials announced this morning unveiling what could be the toughest such policy in the country. “We believe this is the strongest policy of its kind for any major transportation agency in the nation and I think it will help make us one of the safest,” said MBTA General Manager Dan Grabauskas this morning. Any subway or bus driver caught using a cell phone on the job will be fired and any driver caught even in possession of a...

The Boston trolley driver who reportedly crashed his train while text-messaging his girlfriend is a transgender 24-year-old who had a female-to-male sex change, FOX News has confirmed. Trolley driver Aiden Quinn changed the sexual designation on his driver's license and was once known as Georgia Ann Quinn, said Anne Dufresne, public relations director for the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles. Per Massachusetts law applicants must provide medical records confirming a gender change for the status to be reflected in official documents.

During the Nick Adenhart press conference, a Fullerton PD spokesman said the man who caused the accident that killed Nick and two others was under the influence of alcohol at the time. The spokesman also said he believes the man, 22-year-old Andrew Gallo, was also driving on a suspended license because of a prior DUI. The cop said Gallo will probably be booked on felony hit-and-run, felony DUI, vehicular manslaughter and possibly murder. Also -- the Angels game tonight has been canceled

SARATOGA COUNTY, N.Y. -- Former Congressman John Sweeney will appear in court later this week on a felony DWI charge. This is his second drunk driving arrest in 18 months.

REDDING, Calif. (AP) - A woman who crashed into a line of stopped vehicles while text-messaging on her cell phone has been sentenced to six years in a California prison for killing a woman in one of the vehicles. Deborah Matis-Engle was sentenced Friday by a judge in Redding, Calif.snip

This one's too stupid for me to make up. From the San Francisco Chronicle: "Authorities in Ohio say a man has been charged with drunken driving after crashing his motorized bar stool. Police in Newark, 30 miles east of Columbus, say when they responded to a report of a crash with injuries on March 4, they found a man who had wrecked a bar stool powered by a deconstructed lawn mower."

That Daryl Fleck , 55, may not have intended to drive when he was found sleeping drunk in the driver’s seat of his vehicle, parked in his home lot at 11:30 p.m. “is immaterial,” Judge Terri Stoneburner argued in a Minnesota Appeals Court decision that upheld Fleck’s drunk driving conviction. Under Minnesota’s Driving While Impaired statute, 169A.20, it is illegal for any person with a blood-alcohol concentration in excess of .08 to “drive, operate, or be in physical control of any motor vehicle.” Stoneburner argues in accordance with State v. Starfield : “Physical control is meant to cover situations where...

Surrounded by flashing red and blue lights, the man in red leather sandals lifted one foot off the ground and waited as the deputy kept time. Then, finding that the man had failed the sobriety test, the deputy pulled the man's hands behind his back and shackled them. The man stood in a strip mall parking lot where he pulled over after an undercover deputy noticed him swerving in and out of his lane on Military Trail and he struck the median, said Sheriff's Cpl. Scott Yoder, who assisted with the arrest. The undercover deputy charged the driver with cocaine...

THE family of a 26-year-old Shanghai woman who died in New York last Saturday after being run over by the car of an allegedly intoxicated off-duty police officer was preparing yesterday to fly to the United States to handle funeral arrangements. Feng Guangqun, the father of victim Feng Huang, plans to make the trip with other relatives to claim the body and learn more about the events that led to his daughter's death. He is now waiting for word on when his US visa will be granted. "We want justice," Feng told Shanghai Daily last night. Feng Huang, who graduated...

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Whatever you say can and will be used against you in court; it's something every cop knows and every attorney should know. Apparently one local lawyer forgot the axiom, when Albuquerque Police arrested him for drunk driving this week. Albuquerque attorney John Wayne Higgins usually defends drunk drivers. On Wednesday night he had the right to remain silent; instead he acted as his own attorney and tried to defend himself. Police said that Higgins struck a curb near 12th and Mountain, and witnesses watched him walk across the street where police found him. Higgins' entire arrest was...

NACOGDOCHES, TX (KTRE) - According to the Texas Department of Transportation, 98% of all DWI arrests stem from the person driving a car, truck, or motocycle. But that last 2% can leave the door wide open, as the Nacogdoches Police Department found out late Monday night. "It is one of those things that you kind of stop and chuckle," said NPD Information Officer Segeant Greg Sowell. But it was no laughing matter, Nacogdoches police had to hit the law books for an unusual incident. Late Monday night, Gerald Herbert Jr., was arrested for driving while intoxicated. But he was not...

Drew University, like many colleges, is working harder to deter underage drinking, but that didn't stop students younger than 21 from drinking heavily at campus parties Labor Day weekend. "The parties are in dorms, on top of buildings, wherever people find an ample place where they're not going to be bothered," said 18-year-old Dean Shtainhorn of Millburn, who admitted to experimenting with alcohol. The Madison campus is not unlike colleges across the country dealing with the problem of underage alcohol consumption and binge drinking. That is why Drew University president Robert Weisbuch said he joined the Amethyst Initiative, a national...

Do you sing in the car? Or shout at the bonehead on your radio? If so, you could get pulled over. That's one of the potentical consequences of a stupid suggestion this week -- by the self-proclaimed National Safety Council -- that cell phones be banned in cars. They want them done away with. They say that the piecemeal banning of cell phones -- mostly in our most liberal states -- doesn't go far enough. They won't be happy until every cell phone in every car is turned off or broken. Specifically, they say that talking on a cell phone...

The state Supreme Court has reversed a lower court’s decision that a Clifton motorist's constitutional rights were violated when police pulled him over for suspected drunken driving based on a phone tip from his daughter. In so doing, it found that the teenage girl’s assessment of “a commonly understood condition” was enough for police to act on it. Two Clifton police officers were dispatched to the home of Clifton resident Paul Amelio on Dec. 11, 2005 about 12:30 a.m. to investigate a domestic disturbance between him and his 17-year-old daughter, according to the Supreme Court decision. The daughter had initially...

A former Morris County municipal judge arrested on a charge of driving while intoxicated also was charged with refusing to take a breath test when the procedure could not be administered due to his continual burping, a police officer testified yesterday. After being pulled over in Sparta on Feb. 15 on suspicion of DWI, George Korpita, 48, a former municipal judge in Dover, Rockaway Borough and Victory Gardens, consented to take a breath test. But the procedure could not be administered because Korpita repeatedly burped, Sparta patrolman Jo seph Pensado testified during a bench trial in the Sussex County township's...

Motorists convicted of driving drunk will have to install breath-monitoring gadgets in their cars under new laws taking effect in six states this week. The ignition interlocks prevent engines from starting until drivers blow into the alcohol detectors to prove they're sober. Alaska, Colorado, Illinois, Nebraska and Washington state began Jan. 1 requiring the devices for all motorists convicted of first-time drunken driving. South Carolina began requiring them for repeat offenders. Mothers Against Drunk Driving has been conducting a nationwide campaign to mandate ignition locks for anyone convicted of drunken driving, claiming doing so would save thousands of lives. But...

The DUI Exception to the Constitution” Posted by Lawrence Taylor on May 9th, 2005 In the course of various postings concerning MADD, I have received emails suggesting that they are a civic-minded organization which does not deserve my criticisms. As I have said on many occasions, I believe them to be a well-intentioned group of "true believers" — who, like most zealots, have a rigid and narrow focus and are ignorant of the harm they cause to others. And in other posts I have tried to explain the nature of that harm. Many years ago, I was invited to give...

A man accused of running down and killing a woman in front of a Bloomington store had a blood-alcohol level that was more than five times the legal limit, according to charges filed Friday. Anthony Phillip LaSalle, 36, was charged with third-degree murder and three counts of criminal vehicular homicide. His blood-alcohol level was 0.41 percent, according to the charges. The legal limit in Minnesota is .08. The charges say he admitted that he drank a half-liter of vodka that day and said he fled because he had been drinking. LuAnn Marie Johnson, 66, of Burnsville, was struck as she...

Drunk driving checkpoints can save lives By Freeman Sawyer - Special to the Express-News My nephew was killed by a drunk driver on a Texas highway. My mother — his grandmother — was the obituary writer at the Express-News at the time. She wrote the obituary for her grandson and told me later it was the most agonizing obituary she had ever written. This tragedy devastated our family. Four other innocent people were killed in this same wreck. One drunk driver changed the lives of five families in one split second that late December night. In 2007, drunk drivers in...

A drunken driver with a violent past killed a hardworking livery driver and her passenger Sunday when he blew through a red light and crushed her car in Queens, cops said. Daryush Omar - who was charged with murder in 2006 but never tried - had a blood-alcohol level of more than twice the legal limit when he plowed his SUV into the livery car driven by Bessy Velasquez. RELATED: SLAIN MAN'S DAD: HE'S A COMMON THUG The mom of two died instantly along with passenger Panayiota Demetriou. Adding to the tragedy, a ghoulish passerby took advantage of the...

A Plainview man awaiting trial for murder in a 2006 slaying outside a Manhattan nightclub now faces new charges: that he was drunk when his sport utility vehicle crashed into a cab in Queens yesterday morning, killing its driver and a passenger, New York City police said. Daryush Omar, 24, was driving his white Range Rover west on 31st Avenue in Astoria at 3:10 a.m. yesterday when he collided with a livery cab southbound on 34th Street, a police report said. The cabdriver, Bessy Velasquez, 41, of Brooklyn, and the passenger, Panayiota Demetriou, 30, of Queens, were taken to Astoria...

A Tarrant County felony court judge arrested Saturday for suspicion of driving while intoxicated was driving 92 miles per hour in a 65 mph zone and had several empty beer cans in her car, Alvarado Police Chief John Allen said.Alvarado police officers stopped State District Judge Elizabeth Berry’s gray Volvo SUV at 4:07 p.m. for speeding in the northbound lanes of Interstate 35W, Allen said Tuesday.During the stop, officers "observed that she had numerous empty and almost empty beer cans in her car," Allen said. The officers also thought she appeared intoxicated.Officers attempted to perform a field sobriety test but...

Three days after Marble Falls police took their first driving while intoxicated suspect to the hospital armed with a search warrant for a blood draw, Seton Highland Lakes Medical Center in Burnet announced they will no longer adhere to the court order. "There were some issues," said Capt. Roger Sooter, with the Marble Falls Police Department. "But the draw was made, then we received the letter from the administrator." Seton Highland Lakes Medical Center Administrator, Scott Fuller, wrote a letter to city and county officials Oct. 6 that stated "effective immediately, the Highland Lakes Medical Center will not draw specimens...

Texting behind the wheel impairs driving skills more than being drunk or high on drugs, according to new research. Reaction times deteriorated by over one-third, which was worse than alcohol at the legal limit or driving under the influence of cannabis.

SAN JUAN -- A Mission police officer has been suspended indefinitely after a Saturday morning arrest for allegedly driving an unmarked police car while drunk, officials said. This is at least the third arrest on suspicion of driving while intoxicated for Officer Martin Flores Villarreal, 40, of Mission, and at least his second while driving an unmarked Mission police car, according to court records and Trooper Johnny Hernandez, a local spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety. The first two charges, in 2004 and 2006, were both dismissed, court records indicate. Villarreal is suspended from the department indefinitely and...

If you’re not a convicted drunk driver, should you still be required to have an in-car breathalyzer fitted (at your expense, ‘natch) to your next new vehicle? Apparently, some automakers — including GM and Toyota — think so. They and a few others are working together under the auspices of something called the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety, which is a $10 million federal “research program” that is trying to develop just such technology for mass introduction a few years from now. At the moment, the only people who have to deal with (and pay for) in-car Breathalyzers are...

Heather Squires was the designated driver. Never exactly a fun thing, but a college buddy of her husband's was driving up from Tucson to celebrate his acceptance into law school. So when her husband, Jason, asked, Heather said yes. It's not safe to be the designated driver these days, either. At Chuy's in Tempe, Heather's brother and her husband and the soon-to-be-law-school student knocked off four pitchers of beer. Everybody was having a great time. Around 9:30 p.m., they decided to head home. So they piled into Jason Squires' new pickup truck. As planned, Heather drove. They didn't get very...

BY ALFONSO A. CASTILLO | alfonso.castillo@newsday.com May 28, 2008 Standing before a backdrop of mug shots of 81 men and women arrested for driving while intoxicated over Memorial Day weekend, Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi billed the display as "The Wall of Shame." But several of the wall's members said Wednesday that the only thing shameful was Suozzi's attempt to publicly humiliate them, their families, and potentially cost them their livelihood before they get their day in court.

The businessman was meeting with clients for lunch at Mimi's Café when he noticed the woman. Sitting a few tables over with her 4-year-old boy, she seemed groggy — yet she was drinking a mimosa. It got worse. The woman ordered a glass of white wine, then another. She was so out of it, the businessman would later write in a statement to police, that she looked ready to fall asleep at the table. When the woman paid her bill and left the restaurant, the businessman was right behind her, cell phone in hand. When she ran a stop sign...

Anyone who refuses to submit to a blood-alcohol breath test this weekend will be required to have his or her blood drawn, authorities said Tuesday in reminding residents of a new program scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. Friday. District Attorney Susan Reed said the ‘No Refusal Accepted' program is scheduled to continue through 7 a.m. Tuesday. A registered nurse will be on duty both at the San Antonio magistrate's office and the detention center to draw blood from anyone arrested on suspicion of drunken driving who refused at the scene to take a breath test. Prosecutors will assist with...

The Texas Department of Public Safety is withholding trooper dashboard camera video taken during the arrest of Texas representative Mike Krusee. Using the Texas Public Information Act, KXAN requested the video after the state lawmaker from Williamson County was arrested for DWI earlier this month. A state trooper pulled him over after he noticed him driving erratically in northwest Austin. The license plate on his vehicle also had expired last December. Elected state officials all have personalized license plates. Therefore, the trooper would have known he was pulling over a state official before asking for identification. A spokeswoman for the...

GEORGETOWN, Texas (AP/KXAN) -- A state lawmaker who helped pave the way for major toll road projects and stiffer drunken driving penalties now faces a DWI charge. Rep. Mike Krusee of Williamson County is the Republican chairman of the House Transportation Committee. He was charged with first-offense driving while intoxicated after a state trooper noticed his car moving erratically in northwest Austin Wednesday night. The license plate on the vehicle also had expired last December. Elected state officials all have personalized license plates. Therefore, the trooper would have known he was pulling over a state official before asking for identification....

State Representative Mike Krusee, R- Williamson County, was swerving between lanes in his black BMW on the frontage road of U.S. 183 Wednesday night, according to officials and an arrest affidavit. A Texas Department of Public Safety trooper arrested and charged Krusee in for driving while intoxicated. Krusee was booked into the Williamson County Jail at 11:15 p.m. Wednesday and was released at 8:55 a.m. today, officials said. His bail was set at $1,000. Trooper Michael Scheffler wrote in the arrest affidavit that he followed Krusee down U.S. 183, after he noticed the swerving, and saw that Krusse had expired...

A Brooklyn, N.Y., company is marketing a breath mint that may be so curiously strong it is raising eyebrows of concerned consumers. It’s called "AntiPoleez," and is advertised as a way to eliminate bad breath caused by alcohol, tobacco and food, My FOX New York reports. Critics say the name and marketing angle could promote alcohol abuse, leading people to believe they can pass a police breath test, or encourage underage kids to drink alcohol and attempt to cover it up. The company’s president denies that is the intention of his product. The Swiss president of the company, RNY Group,...

Police: Clinton Aide to Plead Guilty Mar 24 10:24 AM US/Eastern NASHUA, N.H. (AP) - A senior adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has agreed to plead guilty to drunken driving after the arresting officer was ordered to Iraq making a trial on a more serious charge impossible, police said Monday. Under the plea, Sidney Blumenthal, a journalist and former White House adviser to President Clinton, will lose his right to drive for 16 months. Now an unpaid adviser to Hillary Clinton's campaign, Blumenthal, 59, was arrested Jan. 7, the day before the New Hampshire primary, and charged...