Of three drunken driving arrests reported recently by , two involved alleged third-time offenders, and all, in one way or another, presented significant and immediate danger to others, including:
- A man driving 100 miles per hour and then trying to pass in a construction zone by dodging into oncoming traffic;
- A man speeding on Blue Mound Road with his two minor children in the car;
- A woman who in fact drove head-on into another car carrying a family of four.
Lights, siren and a high-risk stop
At 11:44 p.m. Wednesday, a 27-year-old Brookfield man was arrested for his third drunken driving offense after he passed a Wauwatosa police officer in the 1700 block of Mayfair Road going an estimated 100 miles per hour.
The officer followed as the driver had to slow down when he entered a one-lane construction zone and found himself behind a truck.
The officer did not want to initiate a traffic stop under those conditions, but hit his lights when the man tried to pass the truck into oncoming traffic. The driver did not stop, so the officer used his siren, and eventually the man pulled over after turning right onto West Garfield Avenue.
Additional officers were called for a high-risk traffic stop, but the driver was cooperative. His speech was slow and slurred, and he smelled of alcohol, but he said he’d had only one drink. He was driving fast, he said, to “be cool.”
Since he was already handcuffed, he was taken to the Wauwatosa police station for a sobriety test, which he did not complete, saying, “I know I already failed.” He then said he did want to try the test again, but the officer halted it when the man nearly fell over.
He was taken for a mandatory blood draw and was held for 12 hours until he sobered up because he couldn’t remember a phone number for any person who could come and get him. He had prior OWI convictions from 2004 and 2006.
Putting his own children at risk
At 8:59 p.m. Saturday, a 38-year-old Milwaukee man was arrested for drunken driving, his third offense, with passengers younger than 16 in the car.
A patrol officer on OWI Task Force duty was stationed in the 7100 block of Blue Mound Road when the driver passed him at 41 miles per hour in the 30 mph zone. The officer pulled him over and found that the man had his 12-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son in the car.
The man smelled of alcohol but at first denied drinking. He then said he had been at a family reunion and had “a couple of beers.” Asked how many “a couple” was, he said he’d had three.
He performed poorly on a field sobriety test, losing his balance, and blew a .158 blood alcohol content on a preliminary breath test. He agreed to submit to a blood draw at , 10000 Blue Mound Rd., and his children were released to relatives.
His prior OWI arrests were in 1999 in Fond du Lac County and in 2009 in Milwaukee. He was also cited for driving under revocation.
Total temporal and spatial displacement
At 5:36 p.m. Friday, a 76-year-old Wauwatosa woman was arrested for drunken driving, first offense, after she struck a traffic signal and then ran into an oncoming car while making a right turn from North 76th Street onto West Wisconsin Avenue.
The driver of the car that was hit said the woman tried to drive away from the scene, screeching her tires, but her car was too badly damaged to go far. The man had his wife and two children in the car, which was damaged severely enough that it was undriveable. Fortunately, none of the family members was injured.
Police found the suspect in the back of a medical unit, being evaluated by paramedics. She claimed that she had been hit while sitting still waiting to make a left turn, but she had no idea where she was at the time.
She was taken to Wisconsin Heart Hospital for further evaluation because she could not appropriately answer paramedics’ questions about her condition.
At the hospital, she was examined by an emergency room doctor who pronounced her physically fit but “blown out drunk.”
She told a police officer she thought it was about 11 a.m. when by then it was in fact about 6:30 p.m. She could not complete a field sobriety test.
