Driver: 'You and I Both Know I'm Drunk'

A man who careened through some major intersections and construction zones, going over curbs and narrowly avoiding collisions with parked cars, at first told police he'd had only a couple of beers but soon admitted he'd drunk a lot more than that.

At 2:25 a.m. July 28, a Wauwatosa patrol officer was driving west on North Avenue across Mayfair Road when he saw an eastbound driver clunk over the curb dividing the Mayfair turn lanes before turning south.

He turned around to follow and caught up to the car near Walnut Road. The driver turned west onto Watertown Plank Road and then north on 116th Street. In the interim, he crossed the center line a number of times, over-corrected toward the right curb, and almost hit a parked car.

The officer hit his lights and pulled the man and his passenger over, noting that the driver smelled strongly of alcohol when he rolled down his window. He also had bloodshot, glassy eyes and typically slurred speech.

But, he said, he'd only had "a couple of beers."

When he got out of the car, though, he could hardly stand and had to keep his hands on his car to keep his balance.

The officer then outright asked him if he'd be honest about how much he'd had to drink.

"Ten to 15 beers since noon," the suspect said. Then he added that he was coming from a bar and going to his passenger's house, and he believed he was too intoxicated to be driving.

Nevertheless, the officer asked him to take field sobriety tests, and he agreed, and tried. But shortly into the exercise, he gave up the effort, declined to proceed further, and said, "Just arrest me. You and I both know I'm drunk."

He refused to give a breath sample or a further statement for the record, though, and was arrested for drunken driving, first offense, on the available evidence. (After a Supreme Court ruling in April, police can no longer take a forced blood sample from those who refuse a breath test unless they get a warrant.)

The suspect's passenger, "who also appeared intoxicated," a reporting officer wrote, "was given a courtesy conveyance to his residence."

Connect with your community on Patch

Like us on Facebook | Follow us on Twitter