Controversy over Tennessee DUI checkpoint continues
Last week we shared a post discussing a Tennessee driver and how he recorded video of his experience during a sobriety checkpoint. During holiday times like the Fourth, it isn’t unusual for law enforcement to increase its efforts to make DUI arrests. Those efforts include checkpoints, where driver after driver will be investigated by police. The driver responsible for the video recording made and shared his video so he could try to challenge the ethics of the law enforcement strategy.
Since the release of the driver’s video, however, a different video has surfaced. It is the dash-cam video from the police responsible for the controversial traffic stop. The department released the video to the public in its own effort to prove that no wrongdoing was committed by the law and that the driver’s video was a “one-sided” version of the DUI checkpoint story.
According to the police, the officer recorded in the video did what he was supposed and allowed to do during the law enforcement effort. Not only that, but authorities claim that the officer found evidence of marijuana in the driver’s car. That aspect of the traffic stop, police say, was conveniently left out of the driver’s video.
This incident has become a matter of he said, cops said. Who is telling the truth? And if the truth is that the police didn’t technically do anything wrong according to Tennessee regulations, is that enough to satisfy the matter of citizens’ constitutional rights?
Tennessee drivers who believe that their DWI charge is the result of a wrongful traffic stop or faulty investigation should seek the support of a defense attorney immediately.
Source: WBIR, “TN sheriff releases dashcam video of DUI checkpoint that went viral,” Becca Andrews, July 11, 2013