SANDY, Utah, Aug. 4, 2022 (Gephardt Daily) — Sandy police arrested a drunk driver who allegedly posted a blood alcohol content five times the legal limit driving a car cluttered with more than 40 alcohol containers.
A portable breath test on scene tested at .278, well above Utah’s .05 limit, according to a press release with photos posted Wednesday on the department’s Facebook page. A photo showed at least 38 hard seltzer cans taken from the suspect’s car, plus two empty pints.
“Thank you to the concerned citizen who called in on a suspected drunk driver,” the post reads. “As Officer Acosta arrived in the area he was able to pull this person over before a tragedy took place.”
“If there is no responsible third party to release a vehicle to, as was the case here, we have to impound the vehicle and as a result conduct a search,” Sgt. Greg Moffitt, public information officer for the Sandy Police Department, told Gephardt Daily.
The arrest came July 27, just after 7 p.m. well before sunset, but Moffitt said it wasn’t clear how long the suspect had been drinking, or drinking while driving. “Or why he let so many beer cans accumulate,” he said. “Some of them were still full.”
(Upon close inspection of the photos, it appears the cans are actually hard seltzer containers.)
The blood alcohol content (BAC) taken at the scene of the arrest, 930 S. 700 E, is preliminary, the sergeant said, and a blood test was taken when the suspect was booked into jail, which would likely be part of the official charges.
The preliminary BAC taken with a portable breathalyzer tends to be relatively close to that of a blood test taken later on, he said. Depending on various factors, he said, a BAC can actually increase after a suspect stops drinking.
Among the charges pending would be open container in a vehicle.
Moffitt said 38-plus counts of the misdemeanor offense would be technically possible, but prosecutors rarely take that route given the attendant paperwork and the focus on the more serious charge of drunk driving.
