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Massachusetts OUI / DWI / DUI Lawyer Russell Matson's Massachusetts Police Field Sobriety Test Training Manual

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Massachusetts DWI DUI OUI Field Sobriety Test Police Training Manual

 

 

 

DWI DETECTION

Detection is both the most difficult task in the DWI enforcement effort, and the most important. If officers fail to detect DWI violators, the DWI countermeasures program ultimately will fail. If officers do not detect and arrest DWI violators, the prosecutors can not prosecute them, the courts and driver licensing officials can not impose sanctions on them, and treatment and rehabilitation programs will go unused.


The term DWI detection has been used in many different ways. Consequently it does not mean the same thing to all police officers.

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For the purposes of this training, DWI detection is defined as:


THE ENTIRE PROCESS OF IDENTIFYING AND GATHERING
EVIDENCE TO DETERMINE WHETHER OR NOT A SUSPECT
SHOULD BE ARRESTED FOR A DWI VIOLATION.

The detection process begins when the police officer first suspects that a DWI violation may be occurring and ends when the office decides that there is or there is not sufficient probably cause to arrest the suspect for DWI.

Your attention may be called to a particular vehicle or individual for a variety of reasons. The precipitating event may be a loud noise; an obvious equipment or moving violation; behavior that is unusual,

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but not necessarily illegal; or almost anything else. Initial detection may carry with it an immediate suspicion that the driver is impaired; or only a slight suspicion; or even no suspicion at all at that time. In any case, it sets in motion a process wherein you focus on a particular individual and have the opportunity to observe that individual and to accumulate additional evidence.

The detection process ends when you decide either to arrest or not to arrest the individual for DWI. That decision, ideally, is based on all of the evidence that has come to light since your attention first was drawn to the suspect. Effective DWI enforcers do not leap to the arrest/no arrest decision. Rather, they proceed carefully through a series of intermediate steps, each of which helps to identify the collective evidence.

 

 

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