At 2:00 a.m. as the bar parking lot was emptying, a local police officer was responding to a malicious destruction of property report. As the police officer drove through the parking lot, the officer nearly collided with my client, RZ, who was backing out of his parking space. Reacting to the near-miss, the officer turned this near accident into an investigation as to whether my client had been drinking. My client performed field sobriety tests and a preliminary breath test, and he was arrested. He was over the legal limit when he tested back at the police station.
My client indicated that the officer drove through the parking lot at a high rate of speed, saying that the officer slammed on his brakes and started yelling at him. Given that this was a 911 response call to a report of malicious destruction of property claim at a bar, this made sense. The officer was presumably driving fast to stop whomever was destroying the bar's property. The report made no mention of whatever happened to the person suspected of MDOP, and no other officers responded to the call.
I demanded access to the officer's in-car videos, and the police department ignored my request. I filed a motion regarding the traffic stop, claiming that the officer was driving recklessly, and the officer's bad driving did not justify an intrusion into my client's 4th Amendment rights. I also filed a Brady motion under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). Brady is a United States Supreme Court case which held that the prosecution cannot withheld potentially exculpatory evidence from the defense.
All charges were dismissed against my client.