DUI cops: 'We perjure to convict'

Another holiday weekend has passed, and another 4,222 regular Joes and Sues got rubber hosed by DUI storm troopers searching under every dome light for someone with beer on his or her breath.

An unlucky 232 were arrested and branded as criminals. Their collective cases now choke an overwhelmed court system like a porcupine being sucked through the body of a snake.

Until the next assault on Labor Day (expect 15,000 stops), The Men in Prohibition Blue have gone back to their more insidious pursuits - staking out sports bars and restaurants. The holiday "You Drink & Drive - You Lose" campaign goes back to the regular "You Drink & Drive - We Perjure To Convict."

The odious practice of shooting mildly intoxicated ducks in a barrel comes with a heavy price - the integrity of the arresting officers. Since leaving a sports bar, or worse, a strip mall that contains a sports bar, is not legal grounds for making a civil rights violating traffic stop, the officers must improvise.

As they're quietly taught to do, the cop reaches into his bag of phantom traffic violations to justify red-lighting randomly selected stakeout victims. Since the old "weaving" ruse is wearing thin, the lies have become quite creative.

A friend who was prosecuted in "Zero Compassion" Mesa after registering a meager .026 percent - one beer - was accused of crossing over some mysterious parking lot line before entering traffic.

Rep. Linda Gray, the DUI Dragon Lady who sponsored the lowered 0.08 legislation, initially denied in print that Mesa was making such arrests - quizzical since the city has boasted about its "zero tolerance" policy. When informed of her error, she put on her dancing shoes.

"I don't have a problem with police waiting outside areas known for high incidents of impaired driving and then pulling them over to verify whether they are impaired," Rep. Gray responded in an e-mail. "The Mesa police chief and the City Council majority want their streets to be safe . . . from the destructive behavior of drunk drivers."

Ah, but what about the perjury that goes hand in hand with such arrests? Shouldn't we be safe from that as well?

"I take offense to you stating there is a widespread practice of police officers perjuring themselves in court," she said. "You state this as fact when I do not believe it is so. . . . Officers should be terminated for such behavior. An officer's word, integrity, is everything."

Putting Rep. Gray's denial aside, I disagree that officers should be terminated for a "wink-wink" practice that is both encouraged and approved - especially by judges and prosecutors who turn a blind eye to it in court every day.

What's more disturbing is the failure of Rep. Gray and her fellow legislators to understand that the stakeout system is horribly flawed, and the greater crime is being committed by police officers forced to support such arrests with fabrications given under oath.

As for Rep. Gray and her philosophy of "the totalitarian ends justify the fascist means," I'm reminded of the experience of her more famous namesake. The one-time Dallas actress, Linda Gray, used to receive thousands of letters from concerned fans offering tips to help her beat her alcohol problem.

Trouble was, it was Gray's character, Sue Ellen Ewing, who was the drunk, not the actress. Seems our own Linda Gray has a similar problem with accepting reality.

Dary Matera is an author who lives in Chandler. The views expressed are those of the author. He may be reached at dary@darymatera.com