Drunk driving is bad. Even if you don’t kill yourself of someone else, the legal repercussions of getting a DUI can haunt you for years. The rebut is, as long as you don’t drink and drive, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about, right? In Honolulu, that’s not necessarily the case. The American Civil Liberties Union alleges in a new lawsuit against the Honolulu Police Department that it has a nasty habit of arresting sober drivers for driving under the influence, partly to boost their arrest numbers and partly because department policy allows them to go home early if they make an arrest, CBS News reports.
The lawsuit claims HPD has arrested ”scores” of drivers for DUI, even though they should have passed the field sobriety test, and a breathalyzer test showed they had no alcohol on their breath. And while those arrests don’t necessarily result in convictions, they do allow the department to tout a large number of arrests. The ACLU also alleges it’s even worse than that, since the department’s policy allows night officers who make an arrest to go home early, while still getting paid for working their entire shift. That, in turn, allegedly incentivizes officers to arrest anyone they can find, regardless of whether or not there’s actual reason to believe they were driving under the influence.
“Each of our clients blew a 0.000. None of them were intoxicated. Yet they endured lasting damage to their records, their reputation, traumatic arrests, and unlawful detention,” said Jeremy O’Steen, a lawyer working with ACLU Hawaii said in a statement. “What we are demanding today is simple: Stop arresting innocent people. Stop manipulating the system.”
ACLU V. HPD
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