Quote:
Originally Posted by ERA Chas
Well said Asp, I'd never make it as a lawman either.
Ya, ya, the law's the law and OP will now take his duly prescribed medicine. (With apparently less bitterness than I might). His instinctive decision to aid his child will now reward him with major DMV heartache and allow insurance companies to feast on him for the next 3 to 5 years. No good deed goes unpunished.
Options to the officer? How's this?
If I'm the cop and detect the effects of alcohol, I take OP aside and TALK to him-and use my academy-learned detective skills to determine in a brief conversation if this guy's a bad dude with a problem or a guy that instantly made a decision that his kid's life was in trauma. Knowing that a little girl has lost a digit would be uppermost on my mind-not that this guy could have flattened innocent pedestrians. The fact is, he didn't. Rather than pondering which test to submit him to for maximum penalty, I give him a BIG sermon about driving in this condition and tell him to kiss his kid for me.
If the officer let him walk, would he later torment and second guess himself with the thought. "...damn, I failed to do my duty and missed an opportunity to protect the public from possible harm from this guy"?
Yes, I know officers, you see blood and carnage on the highway every day and you are sworn to combat that horror. But here was a miracle to witness, the Almighty guided this legal inebriate safely to the salvation of his child. You could say major carnage was averted here and call it a day. Cops are humans too, right?
Surveying the situation for a suitable driver/vehicle substitute to take my kid to the hospital is something I would waste zero time on-as he did.
But that's just me and maybe Asp too. But I would do exactly as OP for my kid. Foolish and wreckless as that is in these 'cover your ass' days.
Hope your kid's on the mend too, OP.
Flame away.
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It is not for me to judge or decide, If put in this situation
I have a Sworn Duty to act. It is for the Judge & Jury to make decisions based on character & circumstance.
I have seen very few die from gunshots or stabbing. I have seen WAY Too many gruesome injuries & deaths involving DUI. Which is the greater crime?
Is my job to merely
Suggest the Law rather than Enforce it?
Plus, and take this how you will, if it were ever to come to light that I had let this person go, I would lose my job and earn a one way ticket to jail. Sorry, but that just aint gonna happen.
And yes, if it was another cop, same result. Its already happened in my office. It is part of what me must do. Even good people make horrible judgement errors.
