The DU Lounge
Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsCop Too Soused To Accept Mothers Against Drunk Driving Award. Yes, In Florida.
So Florida It Hurts (apologies to florida du'ers, not my headline)
Cop Too Soused To Accept Mothers Against Drunk Driving Award. Yes, In Florida.
A Florida law enforcement officer was too inebriated to accept an award from Mothers Against Drunk Driving, apparently arriving at the ceremony so sloshed that he was unable to walk straight.
image:
So you say there's a race of cops in the trees?
Officer Michael Szeliga of the Pinellas County Sheriffs Department had been scheduled to receive an award at the July conference for making over 100 DUI arrests, but his supervisors sent him to his hotel room to sleep it off. Szeliga denied that he was drunk when he drove to the conference, a claim undermined by the steering wheel hanging around his neck. Wed like to think the award was given in absentia to Hunter S. Thompson instead. In addition to the personal and professional embarrassment for Szeliga, it is believed that since the news broke on Tampa station WFLA last week, Alanis Morissettes email account was briefly overwhelmed by messages forwarding the story and simply reading, SEE?
Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, who has no doubt encountered every possible variety of Florida Man, was nonetheless surprised by Szeligas behavior:
It was wrong, and again, one of the most ridiculous things Ive heard of. When I first heard about it, that was (what) my reaction was. Come on, youve got to be kidding me. Really?
Following the incident, Szeliga was reprimanded and suspended for one day with pay, so big whoop, more time for drinking. He also had to write a letter of apology to his supervisors for being belligerent at the conference. Despite the blot on his record, he received a scheduled promotion to detective; he is now a detective with the departments crimes against children unit, where he presumably is not allowed to work while shitfaced, but one never knows. Many people believe they detect better while drinking. We think we saw a public service announcement about that. If nothing else, this should look great in his application to join the Secret Service.
The Free Thought Project reports that similar incidents have occurred in the past, noting that in Canadaland last year, David Griffin, a former deputy police chief of Summerside, Prince Edward Island, who was also a chapter president for MADD, was arrested for driving under the influence, albeit not at an awards ceremony. In 2011, former MADD president Debra Oberlin was caught driving with a blood alcohol level triple the legal limit.
. . . .
Read more at http://wonkette.com/595793/cop-too-soused-to-accept-mothers-against-drunk-driving-award-yes-in-florida#BWHydpY6ruqB2tPg.99
Initech
(100,097 posts)JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,362 posts)Creating an award for giving many traffic tickets is ridiculous.
Getting too drunk to receive the award is ridiculous.
I'm trying to think of which is the more ridiculous. It's close.
madinmaryland
(64,933 posts)of parking tickets or driving into a small town 2.3 mph over the speed limit and getting a $300 ticket. And of course the worst of these is driving while Black or Hispanic.