Post by KC on Jan 19, 2007 23:58:41 GMT -5
Officer Amy Rodriguez
FORT WORTH, TEXAS - A judge found a police officer innocent of drunken driving last summer and scolded police in the suburb for acting unfairly.
Judge Daryl Coffey said he believes that Keller police treated Officer Amy Rodriguez more harshly because she was an officer and questioned whether she would have been arrested otherwise.
Keller Police Chief Mark Hafner on Thursday maintained that Rodriguez was arrested with probable cause.
Officer Rodriguez, 31, was stopped for speeding one night in July. The officer said Rodriguez's breath smelled of alcohol and that she told him that she had hardly anything to drink, court records show.
Rodriguez was interviewed but then released to Fort Worth police's internal affairs department, Coffey said. An arrest warrant was issued a few days later, and Rodriguez later surrendered and was released after posting $1,000 bail.
During a bench trial Thursday, the Keller officer who stopped Rodriguez testified that she refused a Breathalyzer. The officer did not perform a field sobriety test and said she "refused to cooperate," court records show.
Refusing to take the Breathalyzer, however, did not indicate that she was guilty and trying to avoid jail, Coffey said.
Rodriguez, who has been with the department more than seven years, was placed on paid suspension and assigned to desk work pending the outcome of the investigation.
Fort Worth Police Chief Ralph Mendoza will review the internal investigation results and the judge's decision before deciding whether to return Rodriguez to duty, said Lt. Dean Sullivan, a police spokesman.
abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=state&id=4953328
