Grayslake police chief charged with DUI - refused all testing. Wonder why?

The Grayslake Illinois police Chief  was charged with drunk driving after a Wisconsin crash Friday. In a wise move that will be no surprise to anyone knowledgable about DUI law and enforcement, the Chief refused to submit to any field sobriety testing, refused medical treatment (which potentially includes blood and urine testing) and refused an evidentiary or forensic blood testing.

Why do this?

Naturally, people tend to think the police live by their famous motto of "To Protect and Serve," and that's certainly usually part of the mix. That said, in the matter of DUI, it's a bit more like "To Investigate and Arrest".

The tests aren't really a chance to prove you're not under the influence of alcohol. They're really to help support the officer's decision to arrest. And by the time you're doing the tests, most officers have already made that decision.

How do I know this? Let's take a short trip down Logic Lane.

One field sobriety test is the Heel-Toe or Walk-and-Turn test. "Failure" of this test occurs when any two "clues" are observed. Clues include things like leaving more than a one inch gap between feet, raising arms at any time more than 6" away from the body, stepping off an imaginary line. There are a total of 18 steps in either direction. So if on one out of eighteen steps, you leave a two inch gap between steps and also raise your arms 6.5" (in the officer's eagle-eyed estimation) you've failed, despite walking the other 17 steps just fine. In any school in the world, 17/18 is an "A", but not here.

Now you can begin to understand why the Chief, who of course knows all of this, refused testing.