El Segundo DUI Arrest, 0.11% BAC, Speeding, Wet Reckless

Our client, age 23, had been out with old friends at the bars in Manhattan Beach. He was an Ivy League graduate and was playing professional basketball in the D-League, hoping to take the next big step into the NBA. While at the bars in Manhattan Beach, he had consumed a few beers with dinner.

As he was driving northbound on Sepulveda, with three friends in his car, he crossed over Rosecrans Boulevard and into the city limits of El Segundo. It was close to 3:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning. Coming down the hill from the traffic light at Rosecrans, he accelerated to 65 miles per hour. The posted speed limit for this section of Sepulveda is 45 miles per hour.

In a Nutshell:  Client, a D-League professional basketball player, stopped for speeding on north Sepulveda Boulevard in El Segundo. His BAC was measured at 0.11%. Case resolved in Airport Courthouse for a wet reckless with no IID requirement.

Little did he know, but an El Segundo Police Officer was half way down the hill, parked inside the driveway that was the entrance to the new mall on the east side of Sepulveda. The officer looked at our client’s car and suspected it was speeding.

From a full stop, he watched our client pass by him and then the officer accelerated after him. Our client did not see the officer behind him. According to the officer, he sped up enough to match our client’s speed, conduct a bumper pace and then decided to make a traffic stop for speeding, a violation of Vehicle Code § 22350. The officer also claimed he observed our client making an unsafe lane change, in violation of Vehicle Code § 22108.

The remarkable thing about the police report was that the officer claimed to have done all these things and our client came to a full stop in just over 0.3 miles.

Our office looked at such a short distance with skepticism. Using simple math that a vehicle travels a mile a minute at 60 miles per hour, the events would have taken just over 20 seconds. In other words, the officer had to accelerate to 65 miles per hour, match our client’s speed, then pace our client for ten seconds (minimum compliance with National Highway Safety Protocol), turn on his flashing overhead lights, our client would have had to then notice these, and then respond by pulling over safely. There just was not enough time or distance for all of this to take place. We thus looked upon the credibility of the police officer as lacking, regardless of the fact that our client gave a breath sample that measured 0.11% blood alcohol content (BAC).

When the client came to our office, we told him that even if the officer were driving the fastest car in the world, with the best acceleration capabilities of any car, he still could not have done what he claimed in so short a distance.

Consequently, either the officer’s estimation of our client’s speed was inaccurate or the officer simply made a traffic stop based on a hunch (or by seeing four African American males speed by in a car).

Airport Courthouse