Olympia man's slurred speech leads to misadventure (arrest) with police [View All]

[Newsjock]

Source: The Olympian

An Olympia man who slurs his speech because of a traumatic brain injury he suffered in a 1999 fall says police wrongfully arrested him in March because they mistook his disability for intoxication.

Ryan Dinsmore, 33, was arrested and handcuffed on suspicion of driving under the influence while en route to the city jail to visit a friend who was being held there.

... A second officer, drug-recognition expert Bryan Wyllie, arrived to assist.

Wyllie searched the vehicle and found nothing illegal. A police report says Dinsmore then was arrested and taken to the police station, where he registered a 0.00 on a Breathalyzer test, which detects blood-alcohol level.

Wyllie still "found probable cause to believe Dinsmore was under the influence of a CNS (central nervous system) depressant and unable to operate a motor vehicle safely," the report says.

... Dinsmore's mother said that last year, Tenino police reacted similarly, forcing him to take sobriety tests when he went to the police department to get insurance information for a vehicle that had struck his parked car. However, he was not arrested.

Read more: http://www.theolympian.com/news/story/445442.html