Completely Sober Lawyer Arrested at DWI Checkpoint
In Durham, North Carolina, lawyer Ricardo Velasquez rolled up to a DWI (driving while impaired) checkpoint with his driver's license and car registration in hand. When a Durham police officer approached his car he rolled his window part of the way down and handed over his documents. Velasquez says that from that point on, his civil rights were violated.
After Velasquez forked over the proper documents, the officer told him to roll his window the rest of the way down. Velasquez says that he refused to roll the window all the way down and told the cop that there was no reason or requirement for him to do so. He also informed the officer that by rolling his window all the way down it would be as if he were giving consent to a search of his car, and he did not consent to such a search.
Velasquez says that at that point, the Durham police officer decided to bring a North Carolina State Trooper into the mix. The trooper approached the car and said that he could smell alcohol and demanded that the window be rolled completely down. At that point Velasquez completely rolled the window down and the trooper reached inside the car, unlocked the door and opened it, then pulled Velasquez out of the vehicle and placed him under arrest.
A portable breath test showed that Velasquez had a blood alcohol content of 0.0 percent. Despite the fact that there was no alcohol present in Velasquez's bloodstream, he was charged with driving while impaired and resisting an officer.
In court, a magistrate judge immediately saw that there was no evidence that Velasquez was driving while impaired and dismissed the DWI charge against him. Velasquez also decided to fight the criminal charge that he resisted the state trooper. Several court dates were set to hear the case, but the trooper never showed up for court and the judge decided to dismiss the charge.
A spokesman for the North Carolina Highway Patrol told a NBC17 News reporter that it is common for officers to request that drivers roll their windows all the way down in order to make it easier to pass the driver's licenses and registration cards back and forth and also to aid the officers in the detection of the smell of alcohol.
Velasquez says that at a DWI checkpoint, officers are supposed to check the documentation and then send drivers on their way. In order to search a car, they must have a reason for the search. In his case, there was absolutely no reason for a search and therefore Velasquez's constitutional rights were violated, at least according to his argument. If he had been convicted of the bogus DWI and resisting an officer charges against him, Velasquez could have had his driver's license suspended, gone to jail and paid thousands of dollars in fines - all because an officer at a DWI checkpoint didn't like his attitude.
It is not known exactly how many people suffer from police abuses simply because they fail to become completely submissive in the presence of an officer, and that fact is troubling to Velasquez. He is considering filing a personal injury lawsuit against the North Carolina Highway Patrol for wrongful arrest; if for no other reason than to shed light on the injustice, give others the courage to speak up and to have the trooper who arrested him finally held accountable for his actions.
