It almost sounds like a script for a movie. All the ingredients are there: sex, violence, intrigue and questions about police misconduct. The tale comes from a local TV station reporting on two Denver police officers and their wives. The four reportedly got into a drunken brawl recently, with the wives in one fistfight and the husbands in another.
There are allegations that the two husbands and one of the wives were also involved in a sexual relationship. While all of that is intriguing, what interests us most in the story is that four Aurora police officers called to the scene of the melee allowed one of the husbands to drive to retrieve his cellphone, though he was apparently intoxicated.
CBS reports that though the Aurora officers later reported noticing that the Denver cop “exhibited signs of intoxication,” and apparently stated that though he didn’t know how much he had had to drink, he knew he was drunk, he was allowed to drive.
“We made a bad decision,” an Aurora police officer said.
The allegedly drunken officer was not asked to submit to a sobriety test, did not have a blood or breath sample taken and was not arrested for DUI, according to the news report. The Aurora Police Department is conducting an internal investigation of why the man was not investigated for drunken driving.
Many people would say the reason he avoided arrest is obvious: his fellow police officers were protecting one of their own.
We don’t know what their reasoning was that night, but it seems unlikely that an ordinary citizen would have been as fortunate in similar circumstances. For those unfortunate enough to be facing a DUI, experienced attorneys are available to help them get through the legal process and understand their best available options.
Source: Denver CBS, “DPD Cop-On-Cop Violence May Lead To Charges,” Brian Maass, June 4, 2014