Crime & Safety
Three Drivers Get 1st-Time OWI Tickets in Tosa
In the 1, 2 and 3 wee hours of the night, drivers under the influence draw the attention of Tosa patrol officers and get their first – and we all hope last – tickets for OWI.
Three drivers received first-offense operating while intoxicated tickets on Tosa streets recently, according to police reports.
At 2:11 a.m. July 17, a woman was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving after she was pulled over for failing to dim her lights at North Avenue and 84th Street.
A patrol office was driving west on North Avenue when a car came approached with high-beams on and didn't dim them. The officer made U-turn and pulled her over.
The woman could not figure out how to dim her lights, and the officer had to do it for her. He smelled alcohol on her breath and asked if she'd been drinking, and she said she'd had three beers.
The woman completed field sobriety tests but did not perform particularly well, swaying and stepping off-line, and she blew a just-over-the-limit .09 blood alcohol concentration on a breath test.
There has to be a better way to show off
At 1:47 a.m. July 12, a man was arrested on suspicion of operating while intoxicated after the same patrol officer (as above) was passed in his marked squad car by an oncoming driver swerving from lane to lane and speeding in the 6300 block of North Avenue.The officer made a U-turn and followed, pulling the suspect driver over in the 6900 block of North.
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Sign up for the Patch NewsletterThe man's excuse for his driving was that he was "just being stupid" and was "showing off for the girls" in his car. He reeked of alcohol, had slurred speech and bloodshot eyes, etc., and as usual said he'd had "two or three beers" and had stopped drinking hours before.
He performed poorly on field sobriety tests and blew a .162 blood alcohol concentration on a breath test in the field. However, he refused to take an evidentiary breath test at the police station or to submit to a voluntary blood test.
His case was processed as a refusal and he was not taken for a mandatory blood draw as that would have required a warrant under an April ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, based on the evidence at hand and his refusal, he was arrested.
Trying to 'bust this down'... well, you're busted
At 3:43 a.m. July 7, a man was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving after a patrol officer saw him drifting back and forth across all three lanes of Mayfair Road north of North Avenue.When the officer hit his lights to pull the driver over, he turned slowly onto Menomonee River Parkway and went up over the curb.
Asked to explain his poor driving and whether he had been drinking, the man said he was just "trying to get to the closest hotel." When asked what that had to do with his driving, he said, "I got over the center line just to go to the hotel. I was trying to bust it down... but, you know."
The officer didn't know, and asked if he'd been drinking at all. The driver admitted he'd had "two beers," but his odor and appearance suggested more.
He had trouble completing sobriety tests and blew a .14 BAC.
The man was given the usual municipal citation for first-timers in Wisconsin, but it turned out he was also on parole from prison, and his parole officer wanted to talk to him about that, so he was sent to the County Jail.
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