This is how you can be arrested for DUI -- even if you're stone cold sober

you haven't had anything to drink tonight not tonight not tonight okay, one of the things we do is ask people to go through

this

okay, caitlin ebner crossed the line and they stopped her on her way home from work, she hit really hard until I asked you to stop following keep going no she wasn't drinking all the alcohol tests came back empty was the last time I smoked weed oh I don't do that I can drug test you right now right? you don't smoke marijuana, well you're showing me indicators that you've been smoking marijuana, okay I didn't realize you could get

arrested

for something you didn't do until it happened to me, watch your wrist.

I don't want to have health and marijuana, no ma'am, no possession unless I find it in her car. I think she is affected by the marijuana she smoked before she felt those handcuffs closing on her wrist. Did she understand? How serious

this

was, I didn't understand, as soon as I took the breathalyzer I thought I'm going home this time, they're arresting you, okay, for drugs under control, the waitress spent the night in jail and had her license revoked. permission to serve alcohol. Due to her arrest for driving under the influence, after four months, prosecutors dismissed all charges because her blood test came back completely clean.

You had to spend months and thousands of dollars to prove your innocence. I did it. When was the last time you smoked marijuana? Don't know. you smoke marijuana, the same thing happened to this college student two weeks before, on Good Friday, well, I think you're okay, I need you to lend me your arm real quick, okay, I think that's why I think that's why you don't You kept your lane and didn't drive. Half way up the ramp when he was behind you wait, give me just a second, give me just a second, that's right, I didn't understand, I ask him why are you arresting me, what did I do, he said do I have a substance?

I wonder, you get

arrested

because you think I smoke marijuana? I think cannabis has affected you. Yes, ma'am, sir. Look, I don't smoke marijuana. Is there any way I can test myself right now? Princess Umbamara was also jailed and I fought drug charges for driving under the influence for half of 2016. Then the blood test came back and they dropped the case. I remember my lawyer trying to talk about a deal. I was like, "I'm not taking a deal." I didn't do anything I wanted. my life back can you reverse time? Can you stick out your tongue very big months later?

It happened for the third time to this light brown student. You are giving me indicators that you have consumed marijuana. They are arresting you for dui. okay, the prosecutor presented this. dismissal of student's DUI drug charge five months later defendant performed well on field sobriety evaluations and blood and urine tested negative three DUI drug arrests three negative conversation tests for marijuana one police officer cobb county police tt carroll documents show that carroll is one of the highest qualified and most trained officers on the legendary cobb county dui task force well you are showing me numerous indicators that he is a certified criminal recognition expert drugs well, I don't think you're telling me the truth, okay, I don't expect because I'm seeing some involuntary indicators that one of the 250 Georgia officers who have gone through this intensive month-long training, a recognition evaluation, has used marijuana.

Drug testing involves a dozen observations that allow officers to not only pronounce that a driver is high but also identify which of s

even

types of drugs are in their system. Marijuana How do I look at someone and say marijuana? There are involuntary responses of the body that we can observe that would suggest impairment of marijuana. He did these techniques that he was taught and determined that you were taking something that you were No, yes, it's unfortunate for me because he has ingested marijuana, that's what my training suggests. Officer Carroll relies on his expert drug recognition training, but in these three dismissed cases he did not do the full post-arrest dre assessment, standard protocol requires all 12 steps.

For completeness, still, any police officer can make a DUI drug arrest with fewer observations if I establish probable cause, you know, and I believe, based on my training, that's why I put the handcuffs on you, various indicators, okay, so when I take drugs. test, I'll be free to do it, right, you're going to jail, ma'am, okay, I don't have a magic drug test that I can give you now, but he just did the magic drug test that resulted in his arrest. We are ruining the lives of innocent people. Caitlin Ebner filed an internal affairs complaint against Officer Carroll Cobb.

County investigators exonerated the officer and doubted Caitlyn's innocence. They insisted that the marijuana could have already been metabolized in the blood. They said yes, we see this happening all the time test results come back. came back bad so the test results were wrong yeah that's what they said the test results were wrong and also if I had taken a urine test it would have tested positive for drugs but Caitlyn took her own urine test the same week of his arrest. 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 it is extremely surprising that is my life they are playing with last week the task force of cobb county dui was awarded a trophy by mothers against drunk driving 1696 duis and officer carol received a silver medal for 90 drunk driving arrests in 2016.

Last year he put dozens of drivers behind bars convicted drunks, but if you got three innocent people having to defend themselves behind bars, how does that balance for you? It's something I'll have to carry with me for the rest of my life. They are suing the Cobb County Police Department in this federal lawsuit. These are the same drivers we showed had negative blood tests for marijuana despite spending months fighting back. against DUI charges I want to ask you a question okay, okay, when was the last time you used marijuana? Oh, I don't do that. I can drug test you right now.

You don't smoke marijuana. You are giving me indicators that you have used marijuana. That's okay, because I'm seeing some involuntary indicators that you've used marijuana. Three drug arrests for driving under the influence because he thinks I smoke marijuana. I think she is affected by cannabis. Yes, ma'am, all three blood tests were negative for marijuana. The charges were

even

tually dropped, but lab results took months and yet the Cobb County Police Department insists its officers can detect marijuana in drivers that a crime lab cannot. Can these blood tests be trusted to convict a driver if they cannot be trusted to exonerate a driver?

That's a fair question. and that's certainly an issue that needs to be discussed with expert staff, medical staff, new cobb county sheriff michael register is not named in the ACLU lawsuit, but is overseeing changes to his department's policies as a direct result of our research. The three drivers sued. police were jailed overnight now cobb county is releasing drivers suspected of using marijuana and delaying formal charges until blood tests come back. We certainly want to protect citizens on Cobb County roads by taking a suspected drunk driver off the road, but we also don't want to make an unnecessary arrest of a citizen.

The 11 living investigators discovered the clean drug test by reviewing dozens of DUI arrests by the same expert drug recognition officer. We manually reviewed 85 cases through court records and found multiple dismissals. Three were almost identical. The three drivers who are now suing the police department for wrongful arrest are treating it like a human drug-sniffing dog. He's the drug whisperer. He can see disabilities in people that other officers can't. I think they think that because. He has so many arrests, one day I will go get a real job and people will be able to Google my name and see that I was arrested for drugs that I did not use and that is Caitlin Ebner, one of the three plaintiffs in this case we talked to the boss police before this lawsuit was filed, but it's actually not just Cobb County tonight on the late broadcast, we're actually going to show you the dash cam of a teacher in South Georgia who almost lost custody. of his two young children because of an over-the-counter Tylenol PM he had taken the day before he was stopped, so at 11.

And there are so many medications these days that people are taking for a variety of ailments that they can I'm not really saying what you know, what will be in their bodies, I mean, and the way this would become a culture exactly and the way this works is if they find something in your blood and they see you touch the yellow line , one is proof of this. the other one and you are dui wow and months later it is still being solved months later it takes so much time for the gbi crime lab and in the meantime you are guilty of proving your innocence it is surprising that you don't smoke marijuana, don't consume any marijuana or something I don't I know okay, I think you're okay, I need you to lend me your arm real quick, okay, the drug recognition expert didn't believe these drivers because you think I smoke marijuana, I think you're impaired by cannabis, yeah.

Lady, all three gave their blood to prove their innocence. Can I take a drug test? Please the charges were dropped months later when all three blood tests came back negative in regards to the wrongfully arrested people, I believe at the time of the arrest, The officer felt they were making a fair arrest. Will you submit to the state administration chemical test if you have blood and are under the implied consent law? That test also came back negative. 10 years ago, Cobb County Police had known about this problem for 10 years. for at least a decade lab tests for marijuana are notoriously unreliable in proving or disproving impairment studies show no amount affects all users the same way internal affairs investigations show cobb county constantly questioning negative lab results, not your drug recognition experts, the officer's opinion based on your Training is more accurate in detecting marijuana impairment in a driver than blood testing is that, as you understand , we must base our ability to prosecute on the threshold of the law and when the evidence or circumstances do not meet that threshold, then the person should not be publicly prosecuted.

The department announced a policy change after our investigation no longer imprisons those drivers suspected of using cannabis, but privately cobb county was in damage control in an internal email an official wrote that the department has taken a pretty bad hit because of this story our facebook page has been blowing up with tons of comments negative results immediately after our story and a year after Caitlin Ebner's arrest, Cobb County had the crime lab test her blood a second time. The gbi was asked to use a more sensitive test for the components. Again, the crime lab reported negative results across the board.

Did they ever apologize? No, they never apologized. Officer Abbott said: I know you don't trust me, but I will always be there for you and my response was to put me back in jail. again for something i didn't do lieutenant greg abbott head of the dui task force was praised by county officials for this five-page internal memo attacking our investigation by falsely claiming that we allowed caitlin ebner to lie on camera those three cases fit with keith's narrative that officer carroll was making bad arrests, he wrote that there were no other negative blood tests for the arrest made by this officer where the drivers denied using marijuana 85 arrest reports this is what the department of cobb county police when we asked about every dui arrest officer carroll made in 2016, but officer carroll made 90 drunk driving arrests last year, not 85.

However, the cobb county police department had no problems in reporting each arrest to mothers for drunk driving, for which Officer Carroll received a silver medal last year, so why when we requested each arrest were five reports missing I'm going to ask you a question I need be completely honest with me okay when was the last time you smoked marijuana you don't smoke marijuana you can graduate you can prepare your pan a cup I don't smoke I havea Boy, this is one of the cases that Cobb County didn't tell us about and that are shown here for the first time.

You are giving me signs of marijuana ingestion. Okay, young mother Brittany Penwell, a fourth arrest by Officer Carroll. Most people tell me no. But ma'am, I believe that, from my observation, you have consumed marijuana. Well, the points made her a less safe drunk driver. Well, her blood test came back negative too. Her case was dismissed and automatically expunged in March. A certified police captain in Writing that there were no other reports excluded due to expungement, the department gave the 11 living investigators this drug recognition law for Officer Carroll with much of the toxicology redacted, but we obtained this unredacted copy shared internally among the commanders hiding behind those redactions.

Wells negative drug test. and yet another negative tax report for a fifth marijuana arrest dismissed for having no traces of marijuana in his blood. two more negative tests hidden behind the black cobb county marker, but the dui task force commander told his superiors that we chose the only three cases that lieutenant abbott wrote to his new boss before our interview why Are we still talking to this dishonest guy? Lieutenant Abbott commands a unit that has the power of a single officer's opinion to lock someone up if he is willing to alter the facts to fit his case into a written document. document, how can we trust him not to alter the facts in a case that could result in someone losing his freedom?

I have always known him as an honorable person and a good officer, but you are not black, remember we only kill black people, yes. We only kill black people, right? All the videos you have. Have you seen how they kill white people? This is the DUI task force commander in a video that surfaced shortly after our interview with Chief Lieutenant Abbott retired rather than being fired. Remember we only kill black people, yes we only kill black people right sir? Would you mind stepping back here for me please, I'll take him out and check his sobriety. Okay, are you on any medication or taking any medication for anything?

Nothing, nothing to drink tonight. Okay, college professor arrested for driving under the influence this time, do me a favor, put your hands around his back in front of his son and his daughter, how are his kids, 12 and 10? ? I'm Lieutenant Chapman of the Garden City Police. Is this his father? Okay, they're arresting him right now and I'll explain everything to your mom. The fact that my children had to see all of this was very, very distressing. I didn't have a chance to explain to them, do you know what it was? passing by, they just saw that they handcuffed me to your father, they're going to treat him very well, it's okay, he's going to be fine, there's a problem with his driving, the police tried to play it down, like, oh, we're going to treat your dad. very well and he's going to sleep in his own bed tonight, but my children, you know, will forever have to live with the memory of seeing their father handcuffed, you know, right in front of them, the professor is still so traumatized than not.

He doesn't want us to use his name. Garden City police charged the father with drugs and two counts of child endangerment because his children were in the back seat. Your ex wife or your foster care in the back of my mind is really the entire time I know that I am innocent and that I did not endanger my children in any way. Your husband has been arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. drugs yes ma'am even my uh my ex said I know he wasn't doing anything to endanger the kids and I know he doesn't do drugs or anything like that.

He'll be under arrest for driving under the influence, he's fine, but he doesn't. t drinking to take medication the blood test came back positive for a drug tylenol pm specifically diphenhydramine the active ingredient in the allergy medication benadryl any of these over-the-counter pills can harm a driver worse than alcohol, but only for four to six hours after taking a He had taken Tylenol PM 19 hours before the arrest was made. In fact, the GBI crime lab detected Benadryl in such a small amount that it was consistent with a single dose taken a full day before the stop.

They wanted me to enter a lesser plea. go to dui school because of a benadryl you took because of the best 24 hours before yes this was the next day the next night not even the next day the next night this driver is innocent of dui well now he is I want In other words, the court dismissed the charges against him, Garden City Police Chief David Lyons, who once headed the Georgia Police Chiefs Association, says the officer's opinion is the only approved tool for early drug detection. of the arrest, if it is alcohol, an intoxicant can be applied and not on the spot for drugs under control of alcohol no such thing, some tool I have beyond an educated guess of whether you are incapacitated or not, it's like a guessing game , well, maybe the drug test will turn up something.

The officer didn't have a crystal ball, he had no way of knowing what the drug test was. He would reveal weeks or months in the future, the GBI crime lab takes an average of seven weeks if only drug testing is performed and almost three months if alcohol testing is also performed. Meanwhile, the defendant's future is unclear and his world is turned upside down. You know, I know when you go to the doctor you can get lab test results in two or three days at most, but you know, because it has to go to the gbi and all of this will take three months to get. your lab tests came back you may not get a definitive answer for weeks or months exactly sir, would you mind coming back here for me please so the only drug detector available in the field is the officer himself?

What I'm going to ask you to do is turn your back toward my patrol car and just confront me, you could have gone to jail and lost your kids over the opinion of a police officer. That's right, state records show the arresting officer completed advanced roadside impairment training, including drug detection, just 15 days before stopping the professor. You give someone a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Is there absolutely a human element once you get advanced training that makes you see things that are either there or not there? I don't have an answer for that.

I wish that argument could probably be made that I have this new training and I'm going to go out and show the world that I know how to do all these things and I'm going to take advantage of my new, my latest toy, maybe it's not a toy it's not okay come on , let's take them out and do a sobriety test let's see what we can find it's like the life of someone you're dealing with Garden City police support his arrest they even noted a nearly undetectable amount of ambien in the blood test so small it couldn't be be measured by the gbi laboratory I don't have to be perfect I have to be reasonable and I have to have probable cause when they lose in court nothing happens to them they have nothing to lose and the citizen has everything to lose his name his reputation his style of life in the end the professor did not lose the case his job or his children but he lost more of his trust in the system I am arresting you on suspicion of making you uh let's save the drugs, okay, these people are supposed to be protecting, saving lives and they are ruining lives, they are ruining lives, I'm not in the business of ruining someone's life, we are in a position to get drunk drivers off the road at the end of the day we did our job if they arrest 10 people and eight of them are positive to who cares about the two innocent people, that's it, that's it, except the two innocent people, this time they will take you into custody okay for drugs dui my name is caitlin and it happened to me well, I think you're okay, I need you to lend me very fast arm okay, it happened to me innocent people arrested for driving under drugs, it happened to me our research shows This is not limited to one arrest or one officer.

I'm arresting you on suspicion of doing so. uh, let's save drugs. Okay, it's a national phenomenon. It happened to me. It happened to me. Oh, you're saying you don't smoke. marijuana happened to me it happened to me to me what's so disturbing about these arrests to you we have police officers arresting innocent people and jailing them based on training that is completely unreliable and based on junk science sean young and the aclu of georgia are suing the cobb county police department on behalf of the four drivers we discovered in our investigation. Hello, my name is Carroll County Police Officer.

Are we talking about bad police officers or are we talking about bad training? talking about police departments teaching them how to be so-called drug recognition experts and telling them that they need to start arresting people and jailing them based on the results of this completely bogus methodology; That methodology has been validated by multiple studies, but most were funded by the same federal agency that promotes the drug recognition expert program. Some independent studies have concluded that a dr's opinion on drug impairment is not much better than flipping a coin to graduate. Drug recognition experts are tested using 12 real-world intoxicated subjects in prisons. or rehabilitation centers are not required to evaluate a

sober

person as part of that testing group.

I see indicators that you have used marijuana. They hit the streets having seen drugs on every suspect they've evaluated. Can you really stick your tongue out? big for me, what worries me is that these police officers are being told that they can now perform medical examinations on random people on the side of the road. I wouldn't trust my own brother to give me a medical exam because he is not a Doctor, there are visible indicators documented in drivers who test positive for marijuana, red eyes, pupils that do not dilate or recover, normally raised taste buds, and a coating on tongue, but all those symptoms can be caused by something more totally benign, I think it turned out very big.

Officers believe they are seeing deterioration because they were taught to see it when they tell it to start. They learned from other officers and former officers who have been certified as dre instructors. They bounce off some of the most pronounced things in a long time. Here's the video of the violations that resulted in the traffic stops that landed all four drivers in jail a touch of a lane marker one straddled the line while deciding between two exits you're halfway in the middle off the ramp when you're there to see if I'm driving okay, straight to 85 or straight to 75 right here, you can search my car, you can do whatever you need, no drugs or drug paraphernalia were found, the officer's opinion alone was enough to justify a drug arrest for driving under the influence, although in three of our four cases the drug recognition expert did not do the full dre evaluation, all certification studies were done by completing this full protocol, this full evaluation, but officers don't need that, under the law, to make an arrest, they need probable cause, which is much less.

The 12-step standard and probable cause require that police officers use some type of significantly reliable method to detect whether someone has committed a crime. It turns out that drug recognition officers get the vast majority of full 12-step dre assessments right in the last three. years georgia dres completed toxicology tests on 507 drivers suspected of using marijuana 430 tested positive for thc, meaning 77 drivers tested negative the best trained dui officers in the state were right 85 percent of the time can throw statistics at our clients all day long what they know is that they were jailed overnight, some of them have never been arrested in their lives and now they have to answer for an arrest record for a crime they did not commit for the rest of their lives.

The officers learned of the situation. Dre training allows them to see everything they need to justify an arrest without completing the full post-arrest assessment to confirm that no one is tracking those cases for accuracy. The arrests of caitlin ebner kuhnle oriomi and princess umamara and their negative talk screens are not in any federal database because drs are required to report only full evaluation opinions it happened to me it happened to me it happened to me it happened to me this slide is part of the dre class in georgia no drugs were detected the instructors tell their officers when this happens to you and it will be important that you do not get discouraged the laboratory is not perfect and the toxicologistsThey will not always be able to corroborate your opinion even though your opinion may be accurate when someone tells you that you are an expert and makes you pass In this training, do you blame the officers for thinking they have these powers?

Yes, they will be made to think that they are now experts in whatever training they have gone through, but this piece of paper, this printed certificate means absolutely nothing and in some cases, the courts. States like Florida and California do not allow prosecutors to use the word expert when referring to certified DRES, they are called drug recognition evaluators or examiners. dozens of new drs just hit the streets in georgia funded by a special grant from the governor's office for highway safety, you know, i'm a former prosecutor, right? And that's how I see the world sometimes, but I'm uncomfortable with that 85 percent number that the best of the best at doing this only get it right 85 percent of the time. when it comes to marijuana in Georgia, that's right, I mean they're getting better every year, last year it was 87, but what if you're in those 13?

The community still says maybe the drug test was wrong, the cases were dismissed but still I think in many cases those people were actually disabled because the dre said they were fine and yes there is money in this whole thing. Is there a money trail? Yes, we wanted to follow the money. What I can tell you is that many times these Drug Recognition Officers and DUI Task Force Officers, their raises are tied to the number of arrests they make, not arrests from convictions, and that can result in an increase by merit and there used to be a subsidy that for all this was basically the number of arrests.

The department made arrests across the board, they were able to get federal grants, that eventually changed to where it's now a system based more on quality than quantity. Let's keep it up, absolutely excellent, excellent report, thank you very much.