COPS: DUI through the Eyes of a Defender

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Bonnie Grantham
  • 319th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
GRAND FORKS AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. --  EDITORS NOTE: This article is part of a series titled "Air Force Liquid Television," which features stories about the various areas of life impacted by alcohol and the act of drinking and driving.

One quiet night, a security forces patrol leader and her partner sit patiently in their vehicle, observing activity around their location. The shift consists of directed patrolling of specific areas, random antiterrorism measures, responding to alarms and suspicious activity, facility checks, training exercises and post visits to the main gate. Finally, they get some real action. A car rolls through the stop sign at the nearby intersection and the patrol leader flashes her vehicle lights on and initiates a traffic stop.

The patrol leader walks up to the driver's side window and asks for the required documentation - government I.D., driver's license, registration and insurance card, while her patrol member sets up as an over watch where he can see inside the car. She notices the odor of alcohol wafting out of the vehicle, and the driver's speech sounds slurred while he clumsily fumbles for the information requested by the defender. The government I.D. provided by the driver shows him to be an Airman. The defender suspects the Airman has been drinking and driving. Now the ball has been set in motion.

The patrol's first course of action will be to ask the driver to step out of the vehicle for a field sobriety test (FST). There are three portions to an FST that the subject must pass.

"The different tests that we do in security forces are horizontal gaze nystagmus (HGN), the walk and turn and the one-leg stand," said Senior Airman Caleb Green, 319th Security Forces Squadron base defense operations control (BDOC) controller. "Those tests are approved for use here and security forces-wide."

HGN is defined as an involuntary jerking of the eye that occurs naturally as the eyes gaze to the side. Although HGN can be caused by astigmatisms, alcohol will exaggerate the jerking as the eyes shift from left to right. The patrol will move a pen side-to-side in front of the subject's face at eye level and ask the subject to follow the pen with his eyes to test for HGN.

The walk and turn is when the patrol asks the suspect to walk heel-to-toe in a straight line. The subject will take nine steps in one direction, and then turn around and walk nine steps in the opposite direction.

Last, the one-leg stand is exactly as it sounds. The subject will be asked to stand on one leg for 30 seconds while he counts out loud by thousands (one-one thousand, two-one thousand, etc.).

During the FST, the patrol leader and her partner will watch the subject and grade him or her on his performance. If the subject passes all portions of the FST, then he has proved himself to not be intoxicated and may be released with no more than a citation for running a stop sign. However, he may only have to fail one portion of the test in order for the patrolman to have enough probable cause to place him in custody on suspicion of driving under the influence in order to conduct further alcohol testing.

"We give very specific instructions for the tests so that they will have a standard to go off of," said Green. "If they deviate from it at all, then that's a point against them. If they get so many points against them, then they fail the test and that's more probable cause that they're intoxicated."

If the patrol feels as though she needs to confirm her assessment of the FST, she can use a portable breath test (PBT) at the scene to test the subject's breath alcohol content (BrAC).

When the subject is apprehended, he will be taken to BDOC for further investigation. Before the investigation can progress though, he will be asked to sign an Implied Consent Form stating that he's consented to give blood, breath and urine samples. Refusal to give consent can result in additional adverse action. After he signs the form, the next step in the process will be to test his BrAC with the Intoxilyzer 8000, which is a much more specific breath test than the PBT that is used in the field.

If the results of the Intoxilyzer 8000 show the subject to be intoxicated (has a BrAC of over .08), then the patrol will read the Airman his rights and issue an AF Form 1408 for DUI.

Regardless of whether an alleged DUI occurred on the installation, or downtown, the Airman's on-base driving privileges will be preliminarily suspended by the 319th Mission Support Group commander for six months pending resolution of any civil court or UCMJ action against the member. A member found guilty of a DUI offense faces serious punishment, and a mandatory one-year revocation of on-base driving privileges. Security forces members are notified of the Airman's driving status through a system called Defense Biometric Identification System (DBIDS) as well as the SRBW (suspension, revocation, barred and warrant) roster.

DBIDS is a hand-held scanning device used to scan the I.D. of an individual entering the base. If the individual has a driving revocation on record, then it will show up in DBIDS. A person caught driving while being on a driving revocation will have an additional year added to their revocation. The SRBW roster is another form of keeping track of who has a suspension, revocation and barment. In addition, all completed DUI actions will be entered into SFMIS, which will annotate the violation on the member's driving record and share the information with the state where the member's driver's license was issued.

Processing a DUI is not a one-day task. This process takes time out of security forces members' daily jobs, it hinders commanders and first sergeants involved, and it occupies much of the Airman's time.

"I don't know that DUIs will ever come to a stop," said Green. "The steps that have been taken to show the individual repercussions that come with a DUI are helping, I believe. It's just important to have a little bit of common sense and don't drink and drive."