Crime & Safety

Denial is Not a River in Egypt nor an 80 MPH Zone on Mayfair Road

He didn't do it, he didn't do it, he didn't do it! That's his story, and he's sticking to it.

It's kindergarten stuff: Saying you didn't do something doesn't make it so.

A suspected drunken driver tried his best to deny everything that was clear to an arresting officer, but in the end he got a ticket for drunken driving and another for obstructing the officer and a whole bunch more, so there.

At 2:19 a.m. July 29, the Wauwatosa patrol officer was stopped in a parking lot on North Mayfair Road, monitoring traffic, when a red pickup zoomed past, headed north, at a speed he estimated at 60 to 70 mph and still accelerating in the 40-mph zone.

The officer took out after the high-speed driver and turned on his emergency lights, but the driver didn't slow. The officer said that as he passed Burleigh Street in pursuit, he was going 80 mph and not gaining ground.

He began to whoop his siren and finally caught up to the driver at Keefe Avenue, but still he didn't slow down. Finally, the driver turned onto Menomonee River Parkway and pulled over.

When the officer approached the running truck, the window was just cracked open. He asked the driver to roll the window down, to which the man replied, "Uh, I can hear you." Asked again, he said, "But I can hear you."

Told emphatically to roll down the window and turn off the engine, the man said, "I'll turn the truck off, but I can hear you."

Told he would be arrested for obstructing if he didn't roll the window down, the suspect said, "There is no law that says I have to roll the window all the way down."

Told he needed to comply with the orders of a law officer, he said, "Uh, that's not actually a law."

And so forth, until he finally rolled his window down, but only with the comment that the officer was "abusing your power."

"After that ordeal was over," the officer wrote in his report, he introduced himself and explained why he had stopped the man – who replied that he was "just trying to get home and didn't think I was speeding."

Told he had been followed with lights and sirens for .7 mile at 80 mph, the man asked, "Do you have any evidence?"

Why yes, the officer said, the whole thing was recorded on the squad car's video camera, time- and speed-stamped.

And more so. The man denied the speed he was going, the length of the chase, the number of side roads he could have pulled over on, ad nauseam.

Ultimately, the man wouldn't give his full identifying information and then wouldn't get out of his truck, and when the arresting officer and a backup officer pulled him out, he continued to say he'd done nothing wrong and was being wrongly accused.

During this lengthy exchange, the first officer noted, the odor of alcohol got stronger as the man's exhortations of innocence got louder.

Asked to perform field sobriety tests, the suspect wailed, "Nooo! I'm not gonna do that! I'm taking this to court! I'm taking this to court! I plead the fifth!"

Of course, you get to plead the Fifth Amendment only if you are taken to court, which he will be, for: operating a vehicle while intoxicated; unreasonable and imprudent speed; failing to stop for an emergency vehicle; operating after suspension (second offense within a year); operating without carrying a driver's license; operating without proof of insurance; and obstructing an officer.


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