Intoxicated Police Lieutenant Doesn't Want to Get a DUI

After receiving multiple 911 reports of a reckless driver, a Michigan police officer locates the vehicle and witnesses as it drives over the shoulder twice before he pulls the driver over. The officer's body cam captured the exchange as he spoke to the vehicle's operator.

They quickly establish that the reckless driver is another police lieutenant from a nearby county, and the driver asks the officer who pulled him over to just let him keep going. Apparently feeling that his hands were tied (by his job and by his ethics), the officer refuses to let him leave the scene and continues asking him to step out of the car.

As the driver refuses over and over again to cooperate, the officer eventually states that he can clearly tell the driver is drunk, and their interaction gradually became more strained and frustrated. The driver kept insisting, "Just let me sit here and wait it out, let sleep it off, I'll be fine," and the officer kept repeating, "You know I can't do that, I'm trying to be nice about this."

After 5 minutes of this, the officer finally gives the driver an ultimatum: he either gets out of the car on his own, or he will be forcibly removed. Understandably, the officer doesn't want to have to do so out of respect for a fellow man with a badge, but the driver's refusal to cooperate wasn't leaving him much choice.

Somehow the officer puts up with this exchange for another long 4 minutes, at which point back-up arrives and the local police make good on their promise to physically remove him from the car and arrest him. Ultimately, the thing that got the driver out of his vehicle was the imminent threat of a taser.

About 15 minutes into the video, the driver is in handcuffs and the officer reads him his rights. The driver still refuses to accept with any idea other than the one that lets him go free to sleep on the side of the road without any consequences. With a lot of patience, the two officers finally get him in the back of their police vehicle after a painstaking 21 minutes.

The whole exchange is painful to watch, because the driver's state of intoxication has him acting like an insubordinate elementary-aged child, declaring "no, no, you're wrong" to anything he doesn't like and squirming around with frustration and exasperated sighs.

According to reports from MLive.com, the driver who was arrested in this video lost his badge and rank and is no longer a police officer. He received one year of probation, and is still employed by the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s office (but not as a police officer).



Sponsored Content

Sponsored Content