At a Barbecue Without Booze? Officers Think Not

A  officer noticed a vehicle traveling West on Brown Deer Road near Interstate 43 on Friday without lights on at 3:15 a.m. After pulling the vehicle over, the driver said it was all about the barbecue. Police came to a different conclusion. 

The officer asked the driver, a 24-year-old Milwaukee man, if he had been drinking. The driver said he hadn't, but rather was just leaving a barbecue with friends in Bayside. Throughout his explanation, the officer noted the man's glassy eyes and the smell of alcohol on his breath. 

During the standard field sobriety test, the officer asked the man to recite the alphabet, without singing it. The driver got to the letter "L" making it nearly half way through, before he started repeating letters and stating some in incorrect order.

The officer’s report says he could still smell alcohol on the man’s breath even from the back of the police car during transport to the Bayside Police Department.

The Milwaukee man was arrested for operating while under the influence, but he refused to submit a breath sample. Because it was his first drunken driving offense, the officers did not complete a blood draw. Instead, he was issued a citation for operating while under the influence refusal, which has a mandatory license suspension. He was also cited for driving without headlamps.