Police "Discretion" Leads to Police Extortion

It is common knowledge among my friends that the DC police set up alcohol checkpoints on the driving routes going North from the party districts of Adams Morgan and U Street. It is also common knowledge that the MPD has Stalinist "discretion" in causing an arrest.

The arresting officer, Dennis Fair, said in an interview that “If you get behind the wheel of a car with any measurable amount of alcohol, you will be dealt with in DC. We have zero tolerance…. Anything above .01, we can arrest.” That’s not .10 but .01. And people are arrested in the nation’s capital with zero BACs. The DC’s Attorney General says that it’s legal for drivers to be arrested for DUI (driving under the influence of alcohol) with “no registered BAC.” Indeed, DC police do arrest people with 0.00 BAC if they admit to having had a single drink with dinner.

This is for real, as a friend of mine who blew 0.00 on the MPD breathalyzer was tossed in the terrifying DC Jail for a night and had to pay big legal fees to get her case reversed.

So what is a citizen to do? You can take taxis, which I mostly do. You can also buy off the police, just like in Mexico. I pay $40 per year for a very valuable FOP sticker. For the uninitiated, that stands for Friends of Police and the money goes to the cops. I am religious about taking taxis when I am imbibing but had one notable and unpredicted lapse. One hot summer Sunday night last year I ended up drinking too much scotch and smoking too many cigarettes at a friend's house downtown. I got caught up in a police gauntlet on 15th street and thought, oh shit, this is where my life gets horrible. The MPD were making the driver of every car in front of me get out of the car and were searching trunks. But when they came to me, the cop pointed his flashlight at my FOP sticker and said, "You have a good night, Ma'am," as he waved me by.

I have a new car now, with no FOP sticker, but they telemarketed my tonight so I hope it comes soon. They asked me for $55, but I said I was disabled (I am, by a cold) so they gave me the old rate. Still, it is pretty much extortion and too much police "discretion."