D.C. Attorney General Irvin Nathan confirmed in a statement that he has dropped dozens of drunken driving cases to avoid releasing details of an investigation into two city police officers.
“Because of concerns, including whether proper protocols in urine testing were followed by a few police officers and whether certain forms were accurate, we asked for an investigation by [the police department],” Nathan said. “Pending the results of that investigation, we dismissed some cases in a way that permits us to bring them again based on reliable evidence. We expect to be able to bring most of these cases again in the near future.”
The officers in question account for one-third of the city’s 1,400 annual drunk driving arrests.
Nathan said other cases have been dismissed due to on going problems with the police department’s alcohol breath analyzers.
It has been a year since the city found its breath analyzers were not producing accurate results. The police department has since replaced the breath analyzers, but the medical examiner has refused to certify their accuracy and so their results have not been used as evidence in court.
Last week, The Washington Examiner reported that police shut down the breath-test program entirely. They are now relying entirely on urine analysis.
Nathan said he plans to reintroduce many of the cases dropped due to the investigation into the officers and problems with the breath-test evidence.
