Section A·Page 8
The University Daily Kansan
Monday, February 8, 1999
Officer Steve Carpenter administers a Preliminary Box Test on a suspected drunk driver during his Saturday night patrol. The test provided the officer with the blood alcohol level for the suspect. Photo by Erin McElhainney/KANSAN
A suspected drunk driver submits to a sobriety test performed by Officer Steve Carpenter. The suspect was stopped by a KU Public Safety officer late Saturday night. Photo by Erin McElhinney/KANSAN
Patrolling the streets
A night with KU Public Safety Officers
By Katie Burford
Kansan staff writer
More than seven passengers spilled out of the car that KU Public Safety Officer Robert Linzer stopped at 1:50 a.m. Saturday in the parking lot of Naismith Hall.
A crowd instantly gathered in the doorway to see what was going on. For the 18-year-old Overland Park resident who had been driving the car, the party was over.
The car turned left onto 18th Street and Linzer followed. He turned on his lights as the car turned right into the Naismith Hall parking lot.
Officer Linzer had been driving south on Naismith Drive when he noticed a car in front of him swerve. Immediately he hit a button above his rear-view mirror, turning on a video recorder in a locked box in his truck.
To execute the second test, the driver was supposed to walk nine heel-to-toe steps in a straight line while counting the steps aloud.
His 10 years of law enforcement experience already had given him strong reason to suspect that the driver had been drinking; the man's driving was erratic, there was the smell of alcohol on his breath and his eyes were bloodshot.
Linzer explained the test clearly and concisely to the driver. Ambiguity in test instructions could get a charge
Linzer approached the car and leaned over to explain to the driver why he had stopped him. He asked for the driver's license and returned to the patrol car.
But these factors alone do not warrant an arrest for Operating Under the Influence.
For the first test, the driver was asked to follow the tip of a pen with his eyes. Linzer said that lack of smooth pursuit or jerky eyeball movements were a symptom of intoxication.
Linzer told the driver to get out of the car and he began to administer the first of five tests that would determine whether the driver was drunk.
overturned in court.
(U) Public Safety Officer Robert Linzer administers the first of five sobriety tests on a suspected drunk driver while on patrol Saturday night. The underage driver eventually was arrested for operating under the influence. Photo by Erin McElhiney/KANSAN
He asked the driver whether he understood the directions and whether he had any medical condition that would affect his performance. The driver said he had a twitch.
The driver took nine steps and then asked if he was supposed to take nine or ten steps. Linzer told him to do as he had been instructed. The driver took ten steps.
Because each test has a certain point value, the inability to remember test instructions cost the driver one point.
Next was the one-leg stand. The driver must stand with one foot
lifted off the ground and count aloud. The driver put his foot down twice during this test.
For the fourth test, the driver was asked to say the alphabet aloud — without singing. The driver skipped the letter "p."
Last was the Preliminary Box Test. The test gives a blood alcohol content reading, but it is not a measurement that could be used in court as evidence. The official reading will come from a more sophisticated piece of equipment called an intoxilizer that is at the jail.
At this point, the driver asked Linzer about his rights. Under Kansas law, a person can lose driving privileges for up to one year for refusing to submit to an alcohol or drug test. The driver admitted he had been drinking
and he said he knew he would flunk the test.
Nonetheless, Linzer asked him to do the test.
The PBT calculated the driver's blood alcohol content as .111. The legal limit for a person under 21 is .02. For those 21 and over, the limit is .08.
At 2:04 a.m. the driver was placed under arrest. With a look of stunned resignation, the driver silently submitted to being placed in handcuffs.
By now, the group that has been standing at the building's door — along with the passengers — had left.
An officer found one of the driver's friends to move the car.
When he arrived to jail at 3:12 a.m., the intoxilizer showed that his blood alcohol content
PENALTIES FOR DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE
was actually .099.
■ First conviction is a misdemeanor. The maximum penalty is six months in jail or 100 hours of public service; a $500 fine; required completion of an alcohol education program; and suspended drivers license for 30 days.
■ Second conviction is a misdemeanor. The maximum penalty is one year in jail; a $1,000 fine; required completion of an alcohol treatment program; and suspended drivers license for one year.
Third conviction is a felony. The maximum penalty is one year in prison; or $2,500 fine; required completion of an alcohol treatment program; and suspended drivers license for one year.
Although most drivers that KU public safety officers pull over are not intoxicated, a few are. Linzer said that there were between two and four OUIs on an average weekend for the KU Public Safety Office.
For Linzer, this was the eighth person he had pulled over since his shift began at 10:30 p.m.
With the others, Linzer determined within a brief interaction that they were sober and sent them on their way with a polite "Have a nice night."
■ Refusal to submit to alcohol or drug testing can result in a suspended driver's license for one year.
When the driver from Over-
land Park got behind the wheel
early Saturday morning, he
became one of those few.
Most people who receive OUIs will not spend a long time in jail if they do not have a previous record. Once the officer has finished the paperwork, they can leave as soon as they find a sober ride home and either $75 to pay a bondsman or $500 in cash.
The driver Linzer brought in was released at 5 a.m.
In about two weeks, he will appear in court. If he has no previous record, he could get deferred adjudication and — if he stays out of trouble — the OUI charge will not go on his permanent record.
Tobogganers race just for thrill of it
CAMDEN, Maine — The Hopeless Neurotics, Fat Bloated Idiots and Kevinian's Alternative are cheerfully ready to risk their necks with a plunge down an ice-coated, treelined, mountainside racetrack.
The ninth annual U.S. Toboggan Championships took place this weekend.
Most of the 300 teams were from Maine, but they were joined by some entrants from such tobboganning hot spots as Louisiana, Texas and Florida.
But test anyone take this winter spectacle seriously, the people at Camden Snow Bowl attest that it is purely for fun.
For some, the main challenge Saturday was seeing how badly they could do.
Derek Pierce, 32, of Portland, said he was proud that his Team Wurst tobbogans came in dead last in the marquee four-person event.
Team Wurst, a group of 30-sometimes with longstanding school and social ties, includes such squads as "The Way We Wurst," "Wurstafarians" and "Wurst Push From The Chute Operator."
How did they manage that? "A combination of lack of skills, poor equipment and lack of equipment," Pierce said.
A group from Gritty McDuff's bar in Portland feigned a more serious commitment to the competition.
"This is extreme toboggan," said five-year race veteran Richard Pfefer, as he sipped a beer in one of the scattering of tailgate parties.
There was hardly a snowflake in sight along the course, but the competition uses a wooden chute, just wide enough for a toboggan, that is coated with ice.
The breakneck joyride starts when an operator yanks a lever to release the tobogganes on their plunge.
The 400-foot chute arcs like a long white ribbon down the hillside, eventually disappearing under tree branches before spilling onto Hosmer Pond, where ice fishermen casually pursued their pastime Saturday.
ally pursued their pastime Saturday. The course's speeds of up to 35 mph may not be enough to make Olympic bobsledders swoon but it is fast enough to blur the passing landscape for tobogganers who have no brakes.
The race is helps to raise money for the nonprofit, municipally owned ski area on 1,300-foot Ragged Mountain, unique in the East because its trails offer views of the ocean.
Some teams dress up for the occasion, including the Celestial Sisters garbed as nuns and the Four Elmos wearing red outfits to look like the Sesame Street character.
Some of the competitors were in their 80s. There also were children's teams, with names like Three Buoys and a Gull, inspired by the nearby harbor.
At first, the event drew a few dozen or so teams, "but it kind of grew on its own" into an annual spectacle, said Beth MacDonald, who helps organize the event.
Law may require notices on fur coats
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Fur coats in the fancy shops on Rodeo Drive may soon come with a warning label with grusome details of how the fur's original wearers — the animals
"Consumer notice: This product is made with fur from animals that may have been killed by electrocution, gassing, neck break
Thanks to a petition drive by animal rights activists, citizens of this mecca of luxury shopping will
— were killed.
get the chance May 11 t vote on a referendum requiring furriers to tag their products.
ing, poisoning, clubbing, stomping or drowning and may have been trapped in steel jaw, leg-hold traps," the tat would read
A reluctant City Council voted 3-1 Tuesday, with one abstention, to call the initiative election. Mayor Les Bronte was the lone dissenting vote.
"I don't want our police officers going to stores and checking the linings of coats," Bronte said. "We don't need a pelt pose here."
A group called Beverly Hills Consumers for Informed Choices collected the signatures of more than 3,300 registered voters, forcing the council to put the measure on the ballot. Supporters believe it would be the first fur warning of its kind in the country.
The group says most furriers tell buyers that the animals are killed by injection, which is not always the case.
The proposed law does not take into account that there are no laws regulating the killing of animals for their fur, said Teresa Platt, executive director of Fur Commission USA, an association representing mink and狐农 farmers.
"Fur is purely a status symbol, and more and more it is a symbol of cruelty," he said. "Beverly Hills has a warm climate. The only reason why people would want to wear fur is for the status."
"For mink, the preferred method is gas, and for fox it's injection, but occasionally it is something different." she said.
The proposed tag "lists a variety of methods by which the animals may
Wayne Pacelle, a senior vice president of the Humane Society of the United States, supports the proposed law.
own," she added. "imagine if such a label were required for meat, chicken, fish, medicine — the list is endless." For William
Carothers, of Santa Bar bara, who was looking for a fox-trimmed leather coat
at Somper Furs for his wife for Valentine's Day, said the tag would not affect his decision.
"I love animals myself, but fur has been worn forever," he said. "I learned long ago that Bambi no longer runs in the wild."
The manager of Somper Furs.
Douglas Fine, called the ballot measure "one more attempt by the extreme animal activists to generate publicity to hurt the fur industry."
Boeing 727 is man's dream home
"It's awesome, it's spine-tingling." Campbell said, as the jet was towed up the narrow asphalt path, its blue and white fuselage a startling disruption to the backdrop of fog-covered hills and quiet farms. "It's fascinating how wonderful that marriage is: a natural environment and slick, cool, high technology."
The plane, pulled by a semi-truck rig at a top speed of 4 mph, arrived about 6:30 a.m. at the Laurel Valley general store, where workers waited for dawn to break before ascending the winding road leading to Paul and Chris Denfeld's 500-acre walnut and hazelnut groves.
LAUREL, Ore. — Transporting Bruce Campbell's new home from the airport to the countryside was a cinch. Getting it up the driveway was another matter.
The 49-year-old electrical engineer who bought a used Boeing 727 to turn into a bachelor apartment saw the jet make an incredible journey Saturday — from a muddy field near the Hillsboro airport to the doorstep of his neighbor's property about 12 miles south.
Dozens of onlookers, many with bleary-eyed children, stood in the rain to watch the 127-foot-long aircraft negotiate the streets of downtown Hillsboro about 3:30 a.m.
But the rest of the asphalt driveway was too thin to support the weight of the 32-ton aircraft, and the idea of crossing over a shallow ditch and winching the plane about 400 feet up a muddy side road seemed impossible.
The plan involved towing the fuselage, resting on wheeled dolls, into a gravel-strewn gully behind the Denefels' barn, where it would remain until spring, when Campbell could figure out a way to get it up the steep slope to his 10-acre parcel.
Illustrations by Jason Williams/Kansan
But first it had to be moved, a complex undertaking that will end up costing Campbell about $25,000. For months, he worked to obtain the permits needed to effectively bring the city to a standstill for a few hours.
Campbell, who had dreamed of living inside a jetliner since childhood, got his wish last Halloween when the 727 he bought for $100,000 was decommissioned by Greece's Olympic Airways and flown to Hillsborough, a town of about 45,000 west of Portland. Campbell will outfit the plane with a bedroom, bathroom and workshop, and possibly a deck. He'll also re-attach the wings then.
Hotline screens moods of Boston workers
About 20 exhausted workers went home and the plane, unable to taxi, stayed put on the driveway. They were trying again Sunday afternoon, and hoped to complete the process by nightfall.
The city has installed a "mood meter," an automated phone system that screens for depression. Callers listen to recorded descriptions of how they feel and are asked how often they feel that way.
BOSTON — For city workers feeling blue, help may be a phone call away. They just should not expect a human on the other end of the line.
Description range from "I get tired for no reason" to "I feel others would be better off if I were dead." When callers punch the corresponding digits, they hear a recorded diagnosis that urges severe cases to get counsellors.
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Officials said the hotline is especially valuable for the city's 18,000 workers, often blamed for the Boston's malades. The hotline, Installed in October, has received 155 calls.
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