Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil was arrested for suspicion of DUI early Monday morning in Las Vegas, authorities confirm.

The rocker, 49, was taken into custody at Clark County Detention Center where he was booked.

Police initially pulled Neil over after a woman told authorities he allegedly grabbed her camera and broke it after she took his picture Sunday night, TMZ reports.

This is not the singer’s first run-in with the law: In 1984 he pleaded guilty to DUI and vehicular manslaughter in the death of musician Nicholas “Razzle” Dingley.

Neil’s rep was not immediately available for comment.

An intriguing detail has emerged, courtesy of TMZ, about the handling of evidence after Lindsay Lohan‘s July 2007 arrest after a car chase in Santa Monica. It was her second Orange County DUI arrest that year; in a plea bargain, the penalties on the two incidents were rolled into one punishment — the one with probation LiLo’s still struggling to complete. 

According to the police report obtained by TMZ, an officer involving in booking Lohan found a card with an “unknown substance caked on to the surface” in the actress’ back pocket; some of the substance, he said, fell to the floor.

After initially thinking the caked-on substance “was a wet crushed breath mint,” he wrote, he tossed the card in the trash, then looked at the floor some more, then realized the powder looked more like cocaine than, say, an under-the-weather Altoid. Then he pulled the card out of the trash.

But then, perhaps, it was too late — for successful prosecution, at least.

Lohan, whose urine tested positive for cocaine, pleaded guilty to two counts of being under the influence of cocaine and no contest to two counts of DUI. However, a drug possession charge, much like the unknown but probably not minty-fresh substance, was dropped.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — A Maitland man has been convicted of the 2008 DUI death of a pedestrian.

A Volusia County jury has found 53-year-old Scott Henry Wheeler guilty Wednesday of driving under the influence while causing or contributing to a death. He faces up to 15 years in prison at his July 15 sentencing.

Wheeler was driving in Port Orange in November 2008 when his BMW hit 72-year-old Charles Schneider, who was crossing a street, and then crashed into a fire hydrant. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene, and Wheeler sustained minor injuries.

Wheeler’s attorney said the collision was unavoidable. He also questioned the validity of a test that recorded Wheeler’s DUI blood-alcohol level at 0.16 percent.

State law considers a person too impaired to drive at 0.08.

SANTA ANA – A Garden Grove man slumped in his chair and teared up Wednesday as an Orange County jury convicted him of second-degree murder for DUI and running down a Seal Beach woman as she pedaled her bicycle on a sidewalk with her son in 2008.

Alex David Trujillo, 45, now faces a 15-years-to-life term at his sentencing on Aug. 20 by Superior Court Judge James Marion.

 

The seven-man, five-woman jury found him guilty of second-degree murder under the legal theory that he knew driving under the influence was dangerous – because of a prior DUI conviction – but chose to do so anyway.

He claimed that he did not drink alcohol on Oct. 12, 2008, before he ran over Catherine Busse, 46, on Lampson Avenue in Seal Beach shortly before 5 p.m. But he could not explain why he drove straight onto the sidewalk when the road in front of him curved.

Busse was taking an afternoon bike ride on the sidewalk with Sam, her 15-year-old autistic son, when she was struck from behind and fatally injured. Sam was knocked off his bike and slightly injured. Officers found him sitting next to his mother.

Trujillo claimed at the scene that he swerved to avoid the bicyclists, according to witnesses. But when he testified in his own defense he said he did not remember what happened.

Catherine Busse was a “warrior mom” – a term given to mothers of autistic children – who championed her son’s cause and made sure he stayed active and involved. She was vice president of human resources at American First Credit Union in La Habra and was active in Talk About Curing Autism, a volunteer group.

She was taking her normal Sunday afternoon bike ride with her son when she was struck and killed.

Deputy District Attorney Susan Price introduced evidence during the two-week trial that Trujillo had a blood-alcohol level of .10 an hour after the collision, and had two pain-killers and an anti-depressant in his system. The legal limit for driving in California is .08.

Price argued that it would have been impossible for Trujillo to test that high for alcohol had he not been drinking during the hours before the fatal crash.

A DUI Defense attorney  argued that Trujillo was legitimately taking prescription drugs for a variety of health issues, including sleep apnea, and that he did not drink on the day of the crash.

Cohn said Trujillo was aware of the dangers of drinking and driving and would not have climbed behind the wheel had he been under the influence. The defense attorney acknowledged that Trujillo had become intoxicated at a wedding in Big Bear the evening before, but he argued that Trujillo’s blood-alcohol level was less than .08 at the time of the crash.

Several members of Trujillo’s family broke down in tears after the verdict was read, while members of Busse’s family solemnly hugged Price in the court hallway.

“I feel justice was served,” said Ben Busse, Catherine’s widower and a sergeant in the Vernon Police Department. “He took away and very talented and valuable life, to our family, especially our son.”

DUI charges against Dana Point resident Patricia M. Power, 54, were dropped, and the Department of Motor Vehicles, in reinstating her driver’s license, found there was not “reasonable cause” for her arrest.

“I don’t think it’s right, what he did,” Power said of the traffic stop by officer Michael Moore.

City officials had no comment as of press time and had not replied to a request for a copy of the video recording. Power says she had just dropped off a friend in a popular nightlife area near John Wayne Airport on May 30, 2009, when the traffic stop took place.

In a police report, Moore wrote: “I observed the vehicle … did not have a functioning license plate light. … I activated my vehicle’s overhead red and blue lights … to conduct a traffic stop on the driver of the vehicle for the violation.”

“While speaking with (Power), I smelled a moderate odor of an alcohol beverage emitting from her breath and person. I also noticed her eyes were bloodshot,” wrote Moore, who was accompanied in the patrol car by Officer Paul Sarris.

A subsequent breath test detected a 0.12 percent blood-alcohol level, and Power was arrested and charged with Orange County DUI.

In October, however, DMV officials said the patrol car video “clearly demonstrated that the rear license plate light was lit and functioning well.”

Therefore, she “was not lawfully arrested for a violation of DUI,” the DMV report says.

Farrah Emami, spokesman for the Orange County district attorney, would provide only limited comment on the case, saying charges were dropped because prosecutors “could not prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.”

In late March, the city agreed to cover Power’s attorney’s fees and towing costs. The payment was disclosed recently when the Register requested details on the city’s legal bills.

Of the arrest, Power says, “I’m embarrassed that it happened, especially at my age.”

As for why the stop happened to begin with, Power notes it was prom time and she was near several bars. “I think I was pulled over because I was in that area, and he was more or less cherry picking,” she said.

There is considerable nuance in the laws surrounding traffic stops – checkpoints are generally legal under federal law, for example, but probable cause is generally required before individual motorists can be pulled over.

Ronald D. Rotunda, a constitutional law professor at Chapman University, said police typically cannot stop individual motorists if there is no suggestion they have done something wrong.

“They’ve got to have a reason,” Rotunda said. “You can’t just stop people on the road.”

Orange County prosecutors want to know why some sheriff’s deputies let one of their own go who was apparently DUI. In the afternoon of March 1st, Deputy Allan James Waters slammed into a car stopped at a red light in Dana Point. Responding deputies knew Waters was a fellow deputy and let him go after an investigation.

Seven minutes later, 911 calls from concerned drivers reported Waters to be driving erratically. And 24-minutes after that, Waters was involved in another Orange County DUI crash leaving a 78-year-old woman injured. This time, deputies called the California Highway Patrol who said he had signs of “drug intoxication, including slurred speech, a lack of balance and trouble following directions,” according to KTLA.

The Fortuna Police Department conducted an impaired DUI checkpoint on Friday to ensure safe roads on Fortuna High School’s graduation night.

The DUI checkpoint was on the 1300 block of Main Street in Fortuna, screening about 384 drivers, according to an FPD press release. Two drivers were arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, three drivers were arrested on suspicion of driving unlicensed, two juveniles were arrested on suspicion of possessing alcoholic beverages, and five vehicles were towed.

Additionally, one adult male was observed staggering towards the bright lights of the DUI checkpoint. Officers contacted the subject, and he was arrested on suspicion of public intoxication.

The goal of these DUI checkpoints and saturation patrols is to remove impaired drivers from the roadways and to bring awareness to the public of the dangers of driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol, according to the press release.

The DUI checkpoint and DUI saturation patrols were funded by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Frazier, a 12-year law enforcement veteran, has worked for the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office as a patrol deputy for six years.

Saturday night, Frazier was one of about two dozen deputies, Anderson City police patrol officers and South Carolina Highway Patrol troopers to participate in a series of DUI-checkpoints in Anderson County.

From 6 p.m. Saturday until just after 4 a.m. Sunday, Frazier, one of two Anderson County Sheriff’s deputies dedicated to drunken-driving enforcement, initiated traffic stops on vehicles, screened drivers at checkpoints and eventually made a drunken-driving arrest during the special operation aimed at curbing drunken driving during the first three-day weekend of the summer

Frazier and Deputy Brent Moore are attached to the Anderson County Sheriff’s CATCH Team. Their salaries, training and benefits are paid in part by a DUI grant from the South Carolina Office of Highway Safety, a division of the Department of Public Safety.

Both are experts in drunken driving law and, according to Frazier, “not being surprised at anything anyone does when they’re drunk.”

Saturday night, Frazier worked without Moore, who is on family leave.

Following the deputy as he made traffic stops, conducted field sobriety tests and put someone in jail for drunken driving was a crash-course in the reality that enforcing DUI law is, at times, a game of legal cat and mouse whose only happy ending is simply getting an unsafe driver off the road.

Frazier, a quiet man, is patient while on the job. He is not easily frustrated.

“It doesn’t pay to get frustrated if you’re working DUI enforcement in South Carolina,” he said. “It’s best to be a good listener, because you will get an earful from people sometimes.”

Since January, Frazier and Moore have made about 70 drunken driving arrests in Anderson County, about one every other day.

“You’d think that, with how high South Carolina ranks on the alcohol-related fatalities list, people would wake up to the dangers,” Frazier said Saturday night while patrolling the northbound side of U.S. 76 near Sandy Springs. “You work one fatal accident caused by alcohol, it’s an eye-opening experience.”

Frazier, who was careful with his words, said it was obvious that his role is to protect public safety.

“What isn’t so simple is balancing fairness with my mandate to enforce the law while exercising my best judgment,” he said.

On Kings Road in Anderson around 1 a.m. Sunday, his point was clearly demonstrated.

Having passed a sport utility vehicle in the oncoming lane of Brown Road whose driver failed to dim the highbeams, Frazier had made a u-turn and followed the vehicle as it rolled through a stop sign while making a left turn onto Kings Road.

“Sometimes an impaired driver will have a hard time seeing on a darkened road like this so they hit the highbeams,” he said while he watched the vehicle weave along the winding road, often crossing the centerline and swinging wide around sharp curves. “They’ll hit the brights and then they’ll forget to flip them off.”

Details, Frazier said. Details, details, details.

“We are trained to see, smell, feel and anticipate what an impaired driver is going to do,” he said. “Forgetting to dim the brights or switch off the cabin light in the car, these are things impaired people tend to do.”

After following the vehicle for about a mile, observing and, more importantly, recording it on the cruiser’s dashboard camera, Frazier hit the blue lights and pulled the car over on Kings Road, about a quarter-mile from the intersection of Concord Road.

The driver, a white female in her early 50s, was not intoxicated.

She was weaving, she said, because she was having trouble seeing the road.

Her husband, who sat in the rear of the car to watch the infant child in the car seat next to him, was found holding an uncorked bottle of wine between his legs, a violation of state open-container laws.

“It’s got to be carried in a compartment,” Frazier said while writing the woman a ticket.

The husband took issue with the citation.

He complained that the deputy was wasting time and that the open container ticket was unfair.

He asked for a supervisor.

Frazier’s supervisor, Sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Binninger, arrived about 10 minutes later.

After another 10 minutes of explanation, the man asked for Binninger’s supervisor..

Eventually, the couple returned to the car, open-container ticket in hand.

“Just another day in the life of a DUI enforcement officer,” Frazier said with a smile and shrug.

“People get upset when we pull them over and that is understandable,” he said a few minutes later. “But, as the officer responsible for making the stop, we own the responsibility for it, either way. If I hadn’t pulled the vehicle over and it had been a drunk driver and they had killed themselves or someone else, then what? We have to consider the totality of the circumstances.”

Frazier’s first and only DUI arrest of the operation came at 1:45 Sunday morning, almost eight hours after he had begun.

While working a DUI checkpoint on U.S. 76 in Anderson between the Six-and-Twenty Bridge and Interstate 85, deputies watched a 1992 Toyota four-door approach the checkpoint and make a quick left turn into the parking lot of the Hilton Garden Inn nearby.

The driver of the car, a 20-year-old woman from Central, was driving with two passengers.

Frazier gave her a field sobriety test, a process that takes about 10 minutes.

She failed.

He took her into custody and drove her to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division’s Mobile Blood Alcohol Testing unit, or BatMobile, that was parked nearby. After informing the woman of the process of having her blood alcohol tested and providing her with a copy of the rules and regulations and her rights, Frazier sat in a small compartment inside the BatMobile, waiting for a 20-minute period to elapse.

“We have to give the suspect 20 minutes so that any residual alcohol in their mouth will dissipate,” he said. “It is one of many technicalities we have to be careful about.”

Meanwhile, the suspect sat in the larger compartment, locked in and unable to communicate with anyone other than Frazier, who sat about two feet away on the other side of a shatterproof plastic window.

When the 20 minutes had elapsed, the girl blew into the BAT testing machine.

Her blood-alcohol-content came back several points above the legal limit of .08.

It was almost 3:30 a.m.

An hour later, the woman was on her way into the bowels of the Anderson County Detention Center after being processed on a charge of minor-in-possession of alcohol for the purpose of consumption.

Because the woman was 20, Frazier said, state law applies in one of two ways: Either the woman can be charged with possession of alcohol or with DUI.

The possession charge and positive BAC test combine in an administrative capacity, meaning the woman will lose her license for at least 90 days but will not face the legal liabilities of a DUI charge.

“Charging someone under 21 with DUI can go one way or the other,” he said. “Again, it is confusing. I doubt she realizes what a bullet she’s dodged.”

As he stood in the enclosed area where prisoners are brought into the detention center, organizing his notes and ticket books, Frazier said, “We started this DUI arrest at 1:45 and here it is, almost 4:30. That’s just one DUI and I haven’t even done the paperwork on it. It’s part of the job but I don’t think the average person realizes how complex the laws are and how many resources are sucked into something as simple as them choosing to have a few too many drinks and drive.”

He said, “It could be simpler, but it isn’t. I’d just like people to know that, although they may get home safe after driving drunk, there’s that one time they may not and they’ll end up with us, going to jail.”

And if someone gets picked up but beats the drunken driving charge on a technicality?

“That’s certainly a possibility and it’s one we accept,” he said. “But there’s always that one time when technicalities don’t apply. A drunken driving fatality — that’s one thing a lawyer can’t find a remedy for and it isn’t something we are prepared to live with. They may beat us in court later but at least we’ve got them off the road for the night. That’s its own victory when you think about it.”

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-06-08/news/ct-edit-dui-20100608_1_crash-test-police-officer-john-ardelean-breath-test

You already may know about the tragic case that is the genesis of this editorial. Our hope is that you’ll urge your Illinois legislators to make such an outcome less likely to recur. The background:

In November 2007, off-duty Chicago police officer John Ardelean downed three beers and four shots in little more than two hours, according to prosecutors.

Later he swerved into an oncoming lane, slamming his Dodge Durango into a Pontiac Grand Am at Damen and Oakdale avenues. The DUI crash killed Miguel Flores, 22, and Erick Lagunas, 21.