State trooper Lisa Steed is the first woman to be selected as Trooper of the Year in Utah for her record of hundreds of DUI arrests. She was celebrated as having a type of sixth sense for drunk drivers that allowed her to rake up an unprecedented number of hundreds of such arrests in a year. She is now a former trooper after her arrests were found to be invalid. What is striking is how prosecutors long suspected that Steed was unreliable as a witness but she was allowed to continue to abuse citizens. Ironically, in an interview during her illustrious career, Steed referred to her work as a “numbers game,” where she assumed that one in every 10 drivers stopped for a violation is driving impaired.
Steed is trying to get her job back as various drivers are suing the state for her false arrests. One lawsuit recounts how drivers faced employment and financial ruin over their false arrests while Steed was being celebrated as a supercop. The lawsuit notes that Steed was off the charts in her raw number of arrests but the Utah Highway Patrol made no inquiry as she set a state record of 400 arrests. She made some of these arrests after drivers passed sobriety field tests.
Lt. Steve Winward simply told the press at the time that “with her training and experience, it’s second nature for her to find these people who are driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.” It now appears that the “second nature” was to simply arrest everyone to the applause of people like Winward.
In May 2010, a memo written by Utah Highway Patrol Sgt. Rob Nixon raised Steed’s “pattern” of questionable DUI arrests. The memo noted that she relied on impressions that were unreliable and found flawed. Yet, the UHP allowed her to continue to abuse citizens. In April 2012, prosecutors admitted that they would not rely on Sneed due to her dubious arrests that often were thrown out in court. Yet, she was allowed to continue to abuse citizens.
It was not until April 2012 that Sneed was finally taken off patrol and then fired in November 2012.
The scandal shows how much of our enforcement efforts are driven by pressure to “get the numbers up” on arrests. The UHP was obviously not particularly concerned about the abuse of citizens as it was rewarding officers for maximizing arrests. Sneed is not the only officer who should be fired given this record.
Source: Fox
This is a very interesting article/video. I’m posting it just so people can see
what mike and darren can’t refute.
http://tinyurl.com/ayd8uef
Check out this video about some of the actors used in the SH hoax +
something peculiar about Lt. Vance.
http://tinyurl.com/axcn239
sounds like texas or floriduh is going to get a new state trooper.
OT
Folks, here is a subject that I belive merits discussion on the blog (an article perhaps)
http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/22/us/doj-armstrong-lawsuit/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
US gov’t joins in on a whistle-blower lawsuit against Lance Armstrong.
Sorry if the evidence is too much for you, Alphonse and Gaston, but maybe
this will stimulate you to reach for a heapin’ helpin’ of official propaganda.
Good luck.
http://letsrollforums.com/sandy-hook-conspiracy-theories-t29106.html?t=29106
Here’s some more about the Sandy Hook hoax that you boyz can chew on.
if you think you can prove it wasn’t a hoax, then refute some of the evidence, inconsistencies, and questions that undermine the official fairy tale.
http://tinyurl.com/batruwg
Well then Mr. Mike and ds, Explain what i have wrong above, and give your explanation. Take the points one by one. Good luck, mikey.
bill,
It is pointless to debate you because you are incapable of advocating rational thought or weighing fact versus fantasy contrivances. So all that is left is to point out your foolishness. You are free I suppose to call this insult, but your reputation and buffoonery certainly merits what people call you.
Lanza officially dead on the 13th, SHook event on the 14th, “charity” web sites created on the 11th,
A school that’s been shown to be CLOSED last year from google sattelite pics…theres all kinds of indicators it being 100% hoax.
the “dad” yukkin it up just before “getting into charachter” for his “news interview”,
pic of a supposedly dead little girl sitting with obama, and many other tidbits.
Mike – you go ahead and worship (believe) what you want to, and I will continue to stay far ahead of you in knowledge of gov’t sponsored hoaxes
(Sandy Hook) and inside jobs (9/11, Okla. City and others).
As for your little buddy darien, he’s got nothing…except insults, which prove he doesn’t even know the propaganda to rebut with. classic lightweight.
“and I will continue to stay far ahead of you in knowledge of gov’t sponsored hoaxes (Sandy Hook) and inside jobs (9/11, Okla. City and others).”
Bill,
The only place where you are ahead of me is paranoia and gullibility. Gloat all you want.
Mike, just take what bill writes and if he is labeling someone else, substitute bill’s name for the person he is accusing. Or take what he writes and assume the opposite is true. These is the best ways someone can derive truth in what he declares.
Darren,
So true. I certainly don’t view the world through the proverbial “rose colored glasses”, but sometimes someone’s paranoia about life carries them into really dark places.
Ex-Utah State trooper Lisa Steed might want to consider applying for a job with U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz’s office.
What does justice have to do with the justice system…. It’s a rhetorical question I know…..
Wow. A whole bunch of CONSPIRACY THEORISTS commenting here – including spindel, who has to deny that his comment shows he’s a dreaded CT.
It’s okay, mike. conspiracies are as common as Apple pie — whether carried out by LEO in Utah, CO, AZ, CT, 9/11, London 7/7, Bali, Mumbai, or a secretive gay cabal in the Vatican – forcing the POPE to resign. (see:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/21/pope-benedict-resigned-vatican-gay-lobby-paper-claims_n_2735642.html)
“Wow. A whole bunch of CONSPIRACY THEORISTS commenting here – including spindel, who has to deny that his comment shows he’s a dreaded CT.”
Bill,
I do believe in certain conspiracies such as those that caused the murder of
JFK,MLK & RFK. However, my beliefs come from extensive research and years of thought. A “conspiracy theorist” like yourself believes in almost all conspiracies as long as they conform to his pre-judgments and prejudice. It’s the difference between being rational and being bigoted.
The bleep goes on.
She is going to get what she deserves hopefully. There is going to be a class action on this one I would guess, if Utah permits these.
There are officers out there that put a lot of their time into DUI emphasis. There is no excuse to pad the report or make false arrests, just doing regular traffic work will pull in the arrests.
From only having a bit of information from the news article, it seemed pretty glaring to me that many of her arrests were bogus. It’s almost as if she rushed through the SFST’s with the goal of making an arrest, and used any sign no matter how weak, as evidence. When she got to the station and the defendant blew .000 she probably then attributed it to drugs and left it at that.
An officer who makes many arrests for DUI should, if honourable, have the most air tight cases due to experience and knowledge to determine who is impaired and who is not. They also should realize that making hundreds of true arrests for DUI will get undone by just one false arrest so it isn’t worth being careless.
I’ve even had several times where I knew with certainty the person was legally intoxicated but he managed to pass enough of the SFST’s that I could not articulate PC to arrest for DUI. So, I would just tell them that and I would offer them a ride home for safety sake. None of them ever refused this and it was better for all concerned.
I have seen other officers’s arrest reports and when they get to caught up in producing numbers they start getting careless if they don’t make an effort to evaluate the evidence and situation. One sign of this is when the breath test results are too often below the legal limit. A solid DUI officer will rarely have arrests where alcohol was the sole intoxicant and the breath reading was below the limit. Officers who frequently made arrests and the BAC level was below the limit were ones who rushed through or were wanting a particular result and over emphasized the evidence that tended to be incriminating and de-emphasized the evidence to the contrary.
When that starts happening, the supervisor should work on this problem immediately. While it can be shown that a person who is below the legal limit can be truly impaired due to the evidence of their driving, patterns of below limit arrests show a problem with the officer.
I’ve seen several officers like her. They write DUIs to people that other officers have stopped, get their awards for making hundreds of DUI arrests, all the while no publicity that a majority of those DUIs get dismissed because these officers are notorious for not showing up in court and when they do, the evidence is so weak that prosecutors don’t bother with a trial, they just dismiss the case. Of course, some prosecutors don’t do the right thing for various reasons; most lower court prosecutors are part-time and appointed by a mayor, perhaps a city council, who usually tacitly require the appointees to meet a quota of fines. City court judge = cop in a robe.
She was fired because she arrested too many Utahans who had the money, or connections to fight the arrests. DUI charges are a tremendous stain on peoples lives and their livelihood. Many people simply do not have the funds to mount a defense. I believe that there is a pattern behind many DUI arrests in most venues that these arrests bring revenue to the locality and bring praise to the record of the individual LEO’s involved. She just “overdid” it.
At least this officer was fired for her abuses. Most departments merely look the other way. millsapian87 is correct that she should be brought up on charges for false arrests.
Anyone who ever becomes a juror in the future needs to remember stories like this one. If evidence of guilt ever depends solely on cop testimony, I’m gonna acquit.
Getting fired is a good start. Now how about charges for false arrest?