Sober man DUI: Sober driver charged with DUI, even though he had a 0.000 blood-alcohol content. An Ohio man was charged with DUI after her was pulled over by the police, despite the fact that a breathalyzer test showed he had a blood-alcohol content of 0.000.
64-year-old Jessie Thornton who now lives in Surprise, Arizona said cops told him that they could tell he was drunk simply by looking at him.
Mr Thornton explained that in the evenings, he runs errands and goes to the gym, but a late-night swim might have led to the DUI accusation.
Surprise Police Department paperwork shows Thornton was 'pulled over for crossing the white line in his lane.'
'An officer walked up and he said ‘I can tell you’re driving DUI by looking in your eyes.’ I take my glasses off and he says, ‘You’ve got bloodshot eyes.’
I said, ‘I’ve been swimming at LA Fitness,’ and he says, ‘I think you’re DUI … we’re going to do a sobriety test.’ I said, ‘OK, but I got bad knees and a bad hip with surgery in two days.’
Thornton was indeed scheduled to have hip surgery two days later.
'I couldn’t even sit on the ground like that and they knew it and I was like laying on the ground, then they put me in the back of an SUV and when I asked the officer to move her seat up ’cause my hip hurt she told me to stop whining.'
Thornton said two other officers arrived and they conducted the sobriety test.
With a BAC of 0.000, the situation should have been resolved quickly, but Thornton was evaluated for possible drug use as well.
'Yes, I do the breathalyzer and it comes back zero, zero, zero,' said Mr Thornton.
While in custody, a 'DRE' or drug recognition expert is called in to test him.
'After he did all the tests, he says, 'I would never have arrested you, you show no signs of impairment.'
'I've been stopped 10 times in Surprise and given four tickets, it's amazing,' said Mr Thornton.
'I then get this message that my license is being suspended and I have to take some sort of drinking class or something,' he said.
Mr Thornton now claims that it wasn't DUI but motivated by race.
'It was driving while black,' he proclaimed. 'I just don't want any of this to happen to somebody else,' he said.
His latest incident with Surprise police officers prompted him to hire a lawyer with plans to sue the department for $500,000.
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