Broward County prosecutors in Florida have dropped four DUI charges against Alexandra Torrensvilas after this video showed Hollywood police officers making up a false story to pin the blame of an accident on her. The problem is that they did it in front of their dash cameras.
Officer Joel Francisco, 36, hit Torrensvilas’ car at a light on February 17 around midnight and radioed for other officers who immediately got to work to pin the blame on Torrensvilas.
Officer Dewey Pressley, 42, tells Francisco that Torrensvilas has been drinking and the officers decide to claim that she caused the accident as a DUI. She sits handcuffed in the back of a cruiser as the officers script and stage the scene.
Pressley tells Sgt. Andrew Diaz: “As far as I’m concerned. I’m going to put words in his mouth. She went to accelerate and a cat jumped out of the window at which point he thought it could have been a pedestrian, which distracted him. I mean what’s the chances of hitting a fuckin’ drunk when a cat jumps out of the window?”
Pressley adds later: “I nailed her on the video. I already hung her on video. She said she has been doing a beer party. She’s gonna blow.”
Pressley casually discusses falsifying the report with the other officers as they debate who will write it up: “I know how I’m going to word this with the cat so we can get him off the hook. I’ll write the narrative. We’re going to bend this a little bit.” The officers including a fourth officer (Civilian Community Service Officer Karim Thomas) are even shown staging the photography to best incriminate Torrensvilas.
What is most disturbing is how quick and easy the decision proved to be for the officers to falsify an account to incriminate an innocent citizen. It becomes a scene out of The Thin Blue Line. Pressley states “I don’t lie and make things up ever because it’s wrong, but if I need to bend it a little bit to protect a cop, I’ll do it.”
Once again, absent the video, it is unlikely that prosecutors would have ever questioned the account of the officers and this citizen would have been facing four criminal charges.
For the full story, click here.
Here is an idea if ever stopped for DUI, and you are sure you will fail:
Get some hi alc content mouthwash.
Right before the cop comes to you, swish the mouthwash around the mouth.
When he breathylzes you, your blood alcohol content will show up as .6%, a impossibley lethal level.
When it goes to court, impeach the machine, as you couldn’t possibly have that hi a level of alc. If it was true, you would be in a coma, or dead.
With the advent of video taping by both police and the public, we are discovering that the honest cop never really exists.
It is more like a gang dressed in blue who ride roughshod over the truth, the law, and anything else they damn well please.
And, ya, about all those other hones cops. These are the same ones who conspire to cover-up the misdeeds of their fellow gang members. These are the same ones who turn a blind eye to the law breaking and corruption of their fellow officers who hid behind the blue wall of silence.
Until the courts and prosecutors start to really prosecute the offending police officers, these cops will continue to flout the law knowing that the district attorneys and courts are giving them a free pass.
Honesty and Law Enforcement. Trust and intergalactic excuses when a LEO screws up. Makes sense to me.
I needed to add to my above post. In most states the DMV is seperate from the courts. Thats right the DMV in most states is seperate from the courts. This means that even if an attorney got your charged reduced to a reckless driving but you are shown by either of the field tests, that you were operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol, you will still go thru the same motions just like you were convicted of DUI. .01 is the same as .08 in regards to operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol. .01 means you had alcohol in your system.
Also in most police reports the officer typically will say that he smelled a strong odor of alcohol, which in some cases has a very sweet smell. Your perfume or cologne can effect what the officer smells. Look at the bottle of your favorite choice and tell me what one of the main ingredients is, answer, alcohol.
“it is unlikely that prosecutors would have ever questioned the account of the officers”
The obvious question being ofcourse: why ?
Only the babyboomers, man, only the babyboomers….
Whatever happened to professionalism? They do it so naturally that it makes you wonder whether or not it was the first time they did it. At least as an attorney-in-training it throws off some of the bad attention off people in my industry, we need all the good publicity we can get.
“I’m going to tell you that not enough is being done to go after repeat offenders but I can agree that this is another symptom of “tough on crime” thinking gone horribly wrong.”
MASkeptic,
We agree on that and it is amazing how many deaths we see associated with offenders who have multiple DUI’s. It almost leads one to think that the arrests are more about the ticket revenue, than actual enforcement. I’m sorry you’ve felt the ills of this in a personal way. I think there is a distinction to be made between alcoholics and people who have had a drink and drive. It is a hard problem to deal with, but as you said the “tough” approach not only doesn’t work, but I would suggest is mainly window dressing.
I wonder if they can drive their desks better than their cars?
As someone who’s lost loved ones to a drunk driver I’m going to tell you that not enough is being done to go after repeat offenders but I can agree that this is another symptom of “tough on crime” thinking gone horribly wrong.
“It happens all the time especially in DUI cases.”
Bdaman,
Great post that really informed me about the whole drunk driving issue. My health has forced me to quit drinking so that isn’t a particular worry of mine and I take no controlled prescription substances. However, the whole drunk driving issue has concerned me for many years, ever since MADD began its’ crusade.
Any accident, where the driver has even a little alcohol in them gets thrown into the statistics of a drunk driving accident, inflating the statistics. It has given license for police to set up roadblocks, which I think are truly invasive and unconstitutional, even though the courts disagree with me.
Groups like MADD usually are responsible for rash legislative redress and oftentimes the cure is worse than the crime. In NY we have a law called Megan’s law also initiated because of a heinous crime, that allows people who have a mental breakdown to be under a lifetime of unsupervised living, even though their condition doesn’t merit it. The people making the judgments are in the main people on power trips with little understanding of mental illness. When I worked with the severely mentally ill I had to deal with these power trippers who were incidentally workers at private hospitals, receiving grants from the State based on their caseloads.
While, of course I’m not an advocate of drunk driving, the reaction to it seems to have gone too far overboard, so on this at least I think we agree.
In cases like these, why is no-one ever charged with a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice? Is there even such a charge in the US?
I echo Jill’s thoughts. We’re nearing the end of a very slippery slope and I only hope that there’s time to pull out of it. We’re in such trouble. Having said this, I still believe that there are good people in law enforcement. May one or more among them do the right thing,
The Taliban gets as far as it does in Afghanistan because they don’t have a functioning system of justice. The Taliban offers that (such as it is). We should not allow our system of law and order to be torn to shreds. I ask that all LEOs and prosecutors of good will, who believe in the rule of law, stand up and try to put a stop to this. We need you to speak out and start acting to hold lawbreakers in your own professions to account. If you do not, this society will fall into chaos.
It happens all the time especially in DUI cases. The officers written report is written with words to make one appear drunk on paper. For example, If you were to walk the line and make a miss step, the officer may write that the subject FELL of the line instead of stepped of the line. Another one is nose touching were they ask you to touch the tip of your nose. You may touch the side of your nose but he will write subject could not touch the tip of nose. It goes on and on.
Here is the best advice I can give anyone. Don’t drink and drive. If you do and get pulled over, my suggestion is this.
Once you have handed over your license and insurance and it seems as it will progress to the officer asking you to step out of your vehicle, you should.
Advise the officer of your miranda rights, you have those rights even if your watching TV or on the computer. He’ll tell you your not under arrest, you tell him you understand but those are my rights.
Refuse the field test, it is designed for automatic failure from the minute the officer turns on the blue lights. Commonly called lighting you up. Look at the video. The woman is in front of the police car. When she was pulled over the officer has his bright lights on, his spot light shinning in the middle of the car and different colored lights flashing. You, sitting in your car will stare into the side mirrors and the rearview mirrors. Thats ALOT OF CANDLE WATT power. Then the officer will get you to stand in front of his car facing those lights and sometimes will put his flashlight under his arm pit with that light in your face. When you do the ten steps look what happens in the video. As she turns she looses her balance because her eye’s can not adjust fast enough to the light going from bright looking into the dark. Take a flashlight into a dark room, aim the flashlight into your eyes for ten seconds, turn it off and try to walk. It takes ten seconds for your eye’s to adjust either way light to dark, dark to light. The famous Nystagmus test where you follow the pen is bogus for all the same reasons. It is designed for a probable cause failure that will lead to the breath test.
Refuse the breath test. This only gives the judge a scale on how drunk you are. Depending on how much you consumed and at what time you consumed, is a world of difference. If you drink a drink it takes time for the alcohol to get into the blood stream. If you get pulled over late in the evening the officer will take his time while writing his report, the longer he waits the more assured he is that the alcohol you consumed is all in your blood stream and not neccesarily how much was in your blood stream at the time of being pulled over. (states that don’t give in the field breath test)
If you refuse one or both they will suspend your license for refusal. If you do take both test and are found guilty they will suspend you license, fine you, community service, higher insurance, alcohol counseling ect. ect.
Either way your going to jail. Under the refusal part you have not given them any evidence to convict. Any good lawyer good have the charges reduced to a reckless driving and your license will still be suspended. This is better than a conviction.
Clearly, what’s unusual here is that there was real evidence of police framing the citizen. I don’t think the activity the police engaged in was the first or last time such a tactic will be tried to protect fellow officers. I expect this happens all the time, sad to say, and if I were on a jury I would be open minded to such an argument by the defense.
How many of us know that the local police or fire chief are certain to get a break if they’re ever in an accident, or pulled over for DUI? Most of the time prominent politicians or officials would also enjoy such treatment. This is usually rationalized because they’re “good guys” or “put their lives on the line everyday.”
Citizens now see that there are two sets of rules for players in the same game. From taxes to speeding to drugs, there is a high tolerance for all kinds of crimes committed by these individuals and elites. While cases like this one in Broward will be dismissed as an unprofessional act of some rogue cops, it is in fact a symptom of the police state we continue to build.
I wonder if these cops moved to Florida from Los Angeles where some 450 people were released from prison after being framed by the cops there?