GA police drug recognition experts

Chris0nllyn

Well-Known Member
Drunk driving arrests are down sharply after decades of aggressive enforcement, while drugged driving arrests are climbing.

Georgia now has more than 250 officers with special 'drug recognition expert' training.

Officer Carroll: "I'm going to ask you a question, okay? When was the last time you smoked marijuana?"
Katelyn Ebner: "Oh, I don't do that. I can give you a drug test right now."
Officer Carroll: "You don't smoke marijuana?"
Katelyn Ebner: "I do not, no."
Officer Carroll: "Okay. Well, you're showing me indicators that you have been smoking marijuana, okay?"

The waitress spent the night in jail, had her alcohol server's permit revoked because of the arrest. After four months, prosecutors dismissed all her charges -- because the blood test came back completely clean.

Princess Mbamara: "You're arresting me because you think I smoke marijuana?"
Officer Carroll: "I think you're impaired by cannabis, yes, ma'am."
Princess Mbamara: "Sir, I don't smoke weed! Is there a way you can test me right now?"

Mbamara's toxicology screen came back and only showed positive for lidocaine -- an over-the-counter local anesthetic used in transdermal patches to treat back pain, insect bites and other types of pain and discomfort.

Months later, it happened again to an Auburn University student.

Officer Carroll: "You're giving me indicators that you have consumed marijuana, okay? So at this time, I believe that your failure to maintain lane was the reason for that -- so you're being placed under arrest for DUI, okay?"

The prosecutor filed a dismissal of the DUI-drug charge five months later: "Defendant performed well on FSEs (Field Sobriety Evaluations) and blood and urine were negative."

Documents show Carroll is one of the best-trained officers on Cobb County's legendary DUI Task Force.

Katelyn Ebner filed an Internal Affairs complaint against Officer Carroll.

Cobb County Investigators exonerated the officer and doubted Ebner's innocence, insisting, 'the marijuana could have already metabolized out of the blood.'

"When you brought up that you had a clean blood test when complaining to Internal Affairs, their answer was what?" Keefe asked.

"They said, 'Yeah, we see this happen all the time. Um, the test results come back wrong all the time,'" she said.

"Yeah, that's what they said," Ebner replied. "The test results were wrong, and also, if I had a urine test, it would have come back positive for drugs."

But Katelyn got her own urine test the same week as her arrest -- scanning for any metabolites that would still be in her system. The urine test was also negative for marijuana -- or other drugs.

"This training is so powerful, that they believe they can detect drugs that a blood test will not detect," Keefe said.

Last week, Cobb County's DUI Task Force was awarded a trophy by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and Officer Carroll was given a Silver Medal for 90 DUI arrests during 2016.

Officer Carroll got a promotion and a merit raise after a 2016 employment evaluation -- which also noted most of his DUI arrests end in convictions or pleas. Supervisors call him the department's 'go-to officer when it comes to DUI-drugs." He got top marks for making the correct arrest-no arrest decision on impaired drivers.

Commanders would not let Officer Carroll talk with us, but they stand behind the arrests. The department doubled-down on their assertion that the drug recognition expert is better at detecting marijuana in a driver than scientific tests.
http://www.11alive.com/news/investigations/the-drug-whisperer/437061710

 

LightRoasted

If I may ...
If I may ...

JHFC! Special training to f**k the citizenry is more like it. How can this possibly be legal, even allowed to happen? It seems that the police in Georgia are hell bent on starting a war with the people.
 
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