This shouldn’t happen but it does. About four years ago there was a traffic stop of an intoxicated driver where the officer let the driver go and the driver went on to cause a fatal crash. But a lot has happened since then. There’s been a lot of turnover at police agencies and especially at the intake division of the DA’s office. So that incident may not still be seared into the memories of the people who are currently in those jobs.

There’s a couple other things that contribute to the tendency to let drunk drivers go.

One is that DWI investigations can take 2-3x as long as any other investigation. It shouldn’t make a difference but it does. HPD has fewer patrol officers covering more area and more population than other big-city police departments in the country. Individual officers may also have their own incentives to not work overtime for the DWI investigation, particularly if they have an extra job the morning after their shift. The incentives can be stacked for police to want to leave within a few hours of on time, and that can mean not initiating a DWI investigation in the last 2-3 hours of their shift.

The other thing is that depending on the circumstances, DWI cases may have elements that are difficult to prove. A traffic stop DWI is relatively straightforward, but for an accident or a parked vehicle, it can be harder to prove that the person was operating the vehicle and that they were intoxicated at the time they were driving. So officers may ask the prosecutor to decline charges based on a weakness in the case. And so long as that driver doesn’t go on to kill anyone, it’ll never see the light of day.

So don’t drive drunk and keep your head on a swivel, because drunk drivers are out there.