Good Cops Fake 258,000 Breathalyzer Tests To Beat Their Required DUI Quotas

in #news6 years ago

 Hundreds of thousands of motorists were able to avoid breathalyzer  tests in the past 5 years in the Victoria region of Austrailia because  police officers were falsifying tests to meet their quotas. 

In many  cases, when cops are forced to meet quotas, they arrest as many people  as they possibly can—but these officers just pretended to do the work,  instead of targeting the public. 

An internal investigation has found 258,000 alcohol breath tests, which represents about 1.5 percent of the 17.7 million tests that were conducted in that time, according to a report from The Age. Assistant Commissioner Russell Barrett said that officers likely blew  into the breathalyzers themselves or held their finger over the straw  when it was being administered.

 “I’m confident to say that number [258,000] were falsified. It’s  terrible. It’s terrible behavior when we’re the leader of road safety in  the state. The question we all asked was why? There could be a number  of reasons but the main rationale I believe is to hide or highlight  productivity. Whatever reason our workforce may come up with, it isn’t  acceptable,” Barrett said. “No one can be falsely prosecuted, but it’s still terribly  terrible behavior. The community trusts us to do our job and we trust  our members to do that job,” he added. 

Investigators caught on to the activity when they noticed how close  together breathalyzer tests were taken, making it physically impossible  for officers to go from car to car in such a short amount of time.  

Checkpoint sites that were supervised did not have these problems, so  the police force is looking for options to make sure that officers  administer the tests. “In moving forward we are looking into a number of options for  improving and increasing our internal controls and accountability in  regard to our testing regime. We are considering the feasibility of  regular audits, the ability for the PBT to include the detail of the  operator and quality assurance in relation to the issuing and  distribution of straws,” Barret said. 

Since the breath tests are shared among the officers, it will likely  be impossible to determine which officers were responsible for the  tampering. “Due to the extended timeframe of data analyzed and many  variables within the complex data set, including members who may have  moved on from a work location, what will occur is that workplace  guidance will be provided to all workplaces across the organization,” Barrett said.   

As it stands right now, the way the state deals with drunk driving is  tyrannical and infringes upon everyone’s rights—even people like  myself, who hardly ever drink. Economist Jeffrey Tucker wrote an article  on this subject and discussed the problems with the status quo while  offering some solutions, as well. In his article, he said

“Laws against drunk driving have vastly expanded  police power and done nothing to stop the practice. The best prevention  against unsafe driving from drinking has been provided privately:  friends, services offered by bars and restaurants, community interest  groups, etc. This is the humane and rational way societies deal with  social risks. The police have only messed up this process by adding a  coercive element that targets liberty rather than crime. And we can see where this is heading. Texting is now illegal in  most places. So is talking on the phone. Maybe talking itself should be  illegal. Some communities are talking about banning eating. All of this  is a distraction from the real issue.”

Radley Balko, senior editor at Reason Magazine, has argued that drunk driving laws should be abolished altogether on the basis that “if lawmakers are serious about saving lives, they should focus on impairment, not alcohol.” 

“If our ultimate goals are to reduce driver impairment  and maximize highway safety, we should be punishing reckless driving.  It shouldn’t matter if it’s caused by alcohol, sleep deprivation,  prescription medication, text messaging, or road rage. If lawmakers want  to stick it to dangerous drivers who threaten everyone else on the  road, they can dial up the civil and criminal liability for reckless  driving, especially in cases that result in injury or property damage. Doing away with the specific charge of drunk driving sounds  radical at first blush, but it would put the focus back on impairment,  where it belongs. It might repair some of the civil-liberties damage  done by the invasive powers the government says it needs to catch and  convict drunk drivers. If the offense were reckless driving rather than  drunk driving, for example, repeated swerving over the median line would  be enough to justify the charge. There would be no need for a cop to  jam a needle in your arm alongside a busy highway. Scrapping the DWI offense in favor of better enforcement of  reckless driving laws would also bring some logical consistency to our  laws, which treat a driver with a BAC of 0.08 much more harshly than,  say, a driver distracted by his kids or a cell phone call, despite  similar levels of impairment. The punishable act should be violating  road rules or causing an accident, not the factors that led to those  offenses. Singling out alcohol impairment for extra punishment isn’t  about making the roads safer. It’s about a lingering hostility toward  demon rum.”

There is no doubt that drunk driving should be discouraged and that  solutions to prevent people from driving drunk should be explored.  However, it is entirely possible to do this without violating anyone’s  rights in the process.   

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This is heinous conduct. Will police officers go to prison for this felony activity? I seriously doubt it. There’s a reason this kind of stuff happens: police know they won’t be held to account.

the word you wanted was "void"

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Since the breath tests are shared among the officers, it will likely be impossible to determine which officers were responsible for the tampering.

It is not impossible to determine! It's suppose to be their job... to solve crimes.......with real victims...that is.

If we are somewhere with out friends and they break the law we often are considered complicit and guilty of a crime. The only way this is actually a truth is if all the Police who where present are also culpable. Just one of those things that proves the slave trade is the system.

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