Shortly before 08 Sergeant Michael Seligsohn opens the door to the office leading me through a series of hallways to the front desk. I fill out some paperwork then they run me to make sure I don’t have any warrants (I don’t) and then the receptionists double checks with the Sergeant to make sure he is ok taking me for the day.
With that we’re off—to breakfast.
Over chilaquiles and coffee we discuss what the day is going to look like. We will start west and work east, hitting population centers along the way and responding to calls as they come. He explains that Tuesday mornings tend to be on the slow side.
We go to a ski resort where we chat with the private security that works there. They discuss weather, a recent spate of burglaries, and spring training. We cruise through the parking lots before leaving to make sure all’s well—it is.
The rest of the morning is spent patrolling and doing traffic enforcement. Nobody seems to be particularly out of line. Tuesday mornings.
In pursuit of an April Fool’s Day prank we head to Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care (LTWC) around noon. Current residents of the center include a pair of young bear cubs, Blaze and Yreka, whose mother had been poached leaving them in need of care. Fortunately for the pair Tom and Cheryl of LTWC are experts in this area.
We got to hang with the bears during their lunch time. Tom weighs each of them, both clocking in right at 5 pounds, before feeding them their milk and then burping them. The bears, only having just opened their eyes a couple weeks ago, are still too
young to walk. They aimless swat their paws, which are still more claw than anything else, around the whole time.
After this we fuel up then hit the streets. Having earlier established that the road to the northern limit of the county was open we decide to hit that early in the afternoon. We cruise on up for one of the most picturesque drives in the county. When we get to Tahoma we find ourselves suddenly in dire need of caffeine. We head towards a coffeeshop which I’d only ever once been to prior—after Graham and I got off of the Tahoe Rim Trail—but was quite skeptical they’d be open. When we’d gone there before it was September and they’d been closing just after 1300 when we got there.
The coffee shop is in a funky strip mall that is also home to a pizza place and a hot dog place. The hot dog place advertises beer for sale but they only do to-go sales. I’ve never been to the pizza place because it was closed when we got there last time. The man working the hot dog window finished serving all his customers only to walk across the parking lot and open the pizza place as Graham and I sat, filthy and tired, in the parking lot.
We arrive shortly after 1500 and there is no sign of life from the coffee shop. We check just across the road in Placer County and the coffee shop there is nearly totally disassembled, bare plywood and frame standing naked in the snow, as it being remodeled.
Don’t expect much from Tahoma during…well really during anytime of year.
As we turn onto the road I feel the Sergeant punch it out of the turn. I look over at the speedometer as it approaches 50 miles per hour, glancing to the right to double check that we’re still in a 35 zone.
“What did you see?” I ask as we close the gap with the van who is now tailgating the cars ahead of him.
“He crossed the double yellow…but I wasn’t right on him so I want to see what else he’s going to do”
Stuck behind a pair of cars going the speed limit we follow the van through another turn, then both of the cars ahead turn off the road we are on.
The van opens up the throttle, I look over to the speedometer again and watch it read 50, 55, 60. We continue accelerating. Grabbing the radio Sergeant Seligsohn begins to communicate our situation to dispatch. His hand floats down to the switch for the lights and pauses briefly before flicking the switch over and turning the lights on.
“That guy is so frickin’ stoned” he says as he steps back to the car.
“How do you know that?” I challenge.
“He reeks and he just smoked.”
Apparently our speeding stoner was forthcoming and admitted that he had smoked a bowl at the ski resort before heading out.
Sergeant Seligsohn radios in for a CHP officer to come do the evaluation.
Field marijuana evaluations are particularly challenging. Given that there is no level of metabolites which constitutes presumptive intoxication, the way there is with alcohol, the only tool officers have to use is a subjective test—evaluate signs and symptoms then make a judgement. For deputies who don’t have the same kind of training or experience with these tests as CHP officers this presents a high bar to making a ‘good’ DUI arrest.
After a while of standing around and waiting for the CHP to show up I ask how long it normally takes for them to show up.
“They’re normally here within fifteen minutes or so.”
“Well how long has it been?”
“Fifteen minutes on the dot.”
As if on cue the black and white Chevy Suburban rounds the curve and pulls up behind us.
“How are you Sarge?” Officer Burke says greeting my father. Then they get to work.
Armed with all the information from the initial stop my father along with Officer Burke head back to the car and pull out the driver.
Officer Burke begins the field sobriety test, taking his pulse, asking about medications, his day, hitting him with a whole array of questions.
Officer Burke lets the driver return to his vehicle. He explains that even though the guy admits that he’d smoked before getting in the car he didn’t have the physiological signs of intoxication required to sustain a charge against.
Officer Burke elaborated explaining that when was down in Los Angeles he’d pulled over a guy swerving across five lanes on the 405, who admitted to taking bong rips, yet when he did the field sobriety test he simply lacked the signs that would be necessary to charge him. He describes a conundrum for law enforcement today—with no good test for marijuana impairment drivers basically have carte blanche to smoke and drive. As in this case the fraction is citable—the driver of the van was cited only for the moving violations— but the greater cause faces significant barriers to prosecution.
Sergeant Seligsohn writes up the citation, asking Officer Burke what court date they’re currently using for infractions issued that week, then gives the citation to the driver. After a little bullshitting with Officer Burke and another late comer CHP officer we’re on our way through another quiet neighborhood and back to the station to end our day.
