What happens during a DUII arrest? Police sergeant explains

The traffic stop begins like many others — a vehicle drifting far outside its lane on Highway 20 or perhaps failing to signal a turn on Main Street.

For Philomath Police Sgt. Blake Bowers and other officers trained in driving under the influence of intoxicants enforcement, these initial observations can be the first indicators of something more serious — a driver impaired by alcohol or drugs.

“We’ll make a stop — sometimes that can be some violation we’ve observed or it’s something that the community has called in,” Bowers said. “We call those ATLs — attempt to locate. We get a lot of ATLs about vehicles on Highway 20 doing dangerous things.”

What follows is a carefully structured investigation governed by strict procedures, evolving case law and Oregon’s implied consent statute.

“DUII is one of the things that’s unique because it can be challenging,” Bowers said. “The case law is always changing and so you have to keep up on all that stuff. It’s very procedure heavy and so one of the things we try to do is offer trainings to help encourage people to brush up on their skills.”

Identifying impaired drivers

Recognizing signs of impairment begins before officers activate their emergency lights.

“It’s tough to say, I mean, yeah, there’s some classic stuff that you can point to — inability to maintain their lane is a pretty classic one,” Bowers said, later adding that it needs to be a major lane deviation. “Failure to obey a traffic control device, so stop signs, stoplights, that kind of stuff. Failing to stop for pedestrians, turn signals … speed.”

Drug impairment can manifest differently than alcohol intoxication.

“With certain drugs, people have lowered inhibitions and so they might be more likely to speed or do that kind of thing,” Bowers said.

But observations from outside the vehicle only tell part of the story.

“It can be difficult to say exactly what’s happening in the car when you observe some violations,” Bowers said. “It could be for a few different reasons but I think the main part is that we need to figure out what the reasoning is to try to correct the behavior.”

Bowers explained further.

“Someone that’s driving outside their lane could be because they’re eating a taco and they’re driving distracted, which is also a violation,” he said. “It could be because they’re too intoxicated with whatever substances they’ve consumed and we don’t necessarily know that until we stop the car and conduct an enforcement investigation and try to see what’s happening.”

After making the stop, officers make initial contact with the driver, looking for additional signs of impairment.

“Some typical behaviors of a drunk person, somebody who’s consumed alcohol, are slurred speech, difficulty with balance, bloodshot, watery eyes — that kind of thing,” Bowers said. “Compare that to cannabis where somebody is under the influence … their balance might be OK but their ability to perceive time is severely impaired and that’s really important.”

Time perception affects critical driving decisions.

“When you’re driving a vehicle, you need to understand that if you see a car over here, how long is it going to take for it to get from here to here and how fast is it going?” Bowers said. “It’s the same thing like if you’re going through an intersection and the light turns yellow. Well, do I have enough time to stop or do I need to proceed through the intersection? Those types of things are all based on your ability to perceive time.”

If officers develop reasonable suspicion or probable cause for DUII, they ask the driver to perform field sobriety tests.

Three standardized tests

Oregon law prohibits officers from using portable breath tests (PBTs) for DUII enforcement, though they can be used in minor possession cases. Instead, officers rely on three standardized field sobriety tests approved by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The first is the horizontal gaze nystagmus test.

“That test is basically the classic of you hold a pen or some sort of stimulus and move it right and left and they’re supposed to follow it with their eyes and keep their heads in line,” Bowers said. “What that does is gives us an opportunity to look at someone’s eyes and their ability to follow directions. If someone’s under the influence of certain categories of drugs, their eyes will be unable to follow smoothly. So we might see a lack of smooth pursuit, which is what we call that movement as the eye moves left and right.”

Bowers continued, “When someone’s not under the influence of an intoxicant, their eyes will move smoothly left and right and they’re able to track things. When you’re under the influence of certain types of drugs, your eyes will move, they will jerk along that horizontal plane.”

The impairment affects more than just eye movement — it impacts a driver’s ability to track potential hazards.

“There are different types of drugs that cause that, different types of drug categories,” Bowers said.

The second test is the walk-and-turn, which Bowers describes as a “divided attention” test.

During this test, the suspect must walk heel-to-toe in a straight line for nine steps, turn around using small steps, then walk back for nine steps in the opposite direction. Throughout, the person keeps their arms at their sides, counts each step aloud and watches their feet.

“We can look at a lot of different things,” Bowers said. “The ability to balance is just one part of that but we can look at their ability to follow directions, how well are they able to listen to what you’re telling them and to be able to do it themselves.”

Alcohol affects balance, coordination and the ability to process multiple tasks simultaneously.

The third test involves standing on one leg.

“It’s balancing on one leg while your other one’s raised and then you count,” Bowers said. “The test lasts about 30 seconds.”

Additional tests exist, but those three form the core of standardized DUII field sobriety testing.

The arrest decision

After completing the field sobriety tests, officers determine whether probable cause exists for arrest.

If arrested, the driver is transported to either the Philomath Police Department’s station on Applegate Street or the Benton County Law Enforcement Center in Corvallis, depending on circumstances.

Oregon’s implied consent law comes into play once a suspect arrives at the police station or jail.

The statute means that anyone who operates a vehicle on Oregon roads has automatically given consent to take a breath, blood or urine test if a police officer has reasonable grounds to believe they’re driving under the influence of intoxicants.

Refusal carries significant consequences separate from any criminal DUII charge. On a first refusal, the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles can suspend a driver’s license for one year. A second refusal within five years results in a minimum two-year suspension, while a third refusal within five years triggers a minimum three-year suspension.

“Once they get to the police department, they’ll have an opportunity to provide a breath sample,” Bowers said. “We wait an observation period of at least 15 minutes and make sure they don’t consume anything or eat anything by mouth, that they don’t have any tobacco or anything that would hold any liquid — we don’t want it to interfere with the breath test.”

If the blood alcohol content result exceeds .08, the investigation may conclude at that point.

“If the result is over .08, which is the presumptive legal limit for alcohol, then we’re probably done with the investigation,” Bowers said. “We might conduct some more interview questions and that kind of stuff but that’s the end of the processing for the DUII.”

If a suspect tests below .08 but officers still have probable cause to believe impairment exists, a drug recognition expert can be requested.

Bowers serves as the Philomath Police Department’s lone DRE — a specialized position requiring extensive training.

“There are psychological things that happen, there are physiological things that happen in your body that you might not be aware of that affect your ability to drive and we see those things through the tests that we do,” Bowers said.

If the suspect consents, a drug influence evaluation follows. The process involves the person giving a urine or blood sample. If refused, officers can write a search warrant to complete the testing.

Unlike alcohol breath tests that provide immediate results, drug testing requires laboratory analysis.

“With alcohol DUIIs, we have an intoxilyzer, which we’re able to test the BAC (blood alcohol content) pretty much right then and there,” Bowers said. “With drugs, it’s more complicated. We have the process of bringing in a DRE and then collecting a sample, whether that’s blood or urine or both, and then sending it to the lab. And it takes several months, typically, to get stuff back from the lab. So there’s some difficulties with that as well.”

Not every DUII arrest results in a trip to jail.

“If they haven’t fought or eluded or something like that, typically we get them a ride to a safe place,” Bowers said. “So, whether that means us giving them a ride somewhere locally, if we can, or a sober friend coming to pick them up or some other combination — if they’re able to stay with somebody nearby or stay at a hotel or that kind of thing.”

Evolving challenges

Bowers said DUII enforcement has grown more complex in recent years.

“There were some tough times, especially with COVID and some of the substance abuse issues that we’re seeing, there’s a lot of self-medication, a lot of people using cannabis products,” Bowers said. “I think as a society, we’ve realized that alcohol is dangerous to use and drive and we really haven’t quite gotten there on the cannabis part. I know for a fact that some people think that they’re better at driving when they use cannabis and that’s just simply not true.”

Oregon recently expanded DUII definitions.

“Oregon just passed some laws that DUII can include any impairing substance and if somebody’s physical or mental faculties are impaired to a noticeable and perceptible degree,” Bowers said. “So there’s a large scope of what that means. But, essentially, my understanding is that was passed to get rid of some loopholes.”

Bowers continued, “Like, previously, you could consume over-the-counter drugs that weren’t necessarily controlled substances and they can be very intoxicating and before, that wasn’t a DUII. That’s not criminal necessarily, it can be in some ways, but there are just so many different ways that somebody that is impaired can present themselves from some typical behaviors of a drunk person.”

Modern DUII investigations often involve multiple substances.

“It’s not just a simple alcohol DUII these days, you know, there’s different medications that are involved in there and then also using illicit drugs and that kind of stuff that’ll culminate into a pretty dangerous driver,” Bowers said.

The constantly evolving legal landscape adds another layer of difficulty.

“One thing that continues to change is the case law,” Bowers said. “We are constantly updating our policies, our procedures and the way that we do things to reflect the laws and new legislation. DUII is one of those things that is changing frequently. There’s a lot of procedural changes that we go through because something happened in some case and we change the way that we do something to avoid that.”

Procedure and navigating different types of intoxication challenge officers.

“Identifying those things to newer officers and to people who haven’t had experience with that is a challenge, which is why we have some of the trainings and talk about that kind of stuff,” Bowers said. “It’s not just this is what a DUII looks like. There are a lot of different things that can look like and ways that people present themselves that can indicate that they’re impaired.”

For Bowers, the most difficult part of traffic enforcement involves responding to crashes with innocent victims.

“A lot of the crashes are happening because people are leaving their lane and hitting head-on,” he said. “Even if the reason they’re doing something seems benign or seems innocent, the result from that behavior can be the same. Unfortunately, people can get seriously injured from that kind of stuff.”

Bowers said officers responding to crashes see consequences the public doesn’t.

“We are on the front lines of that and the public doesn’t get to see those things,” Bowers said. “I think that’s a good thing — it can be pretty horrific and tragic for everybody involved. But I wonder if sometimes people would be more aware or make better decisions if they knew all the things that we did. So that’s incumbent upon us to communicate that stuff about how dangerous traffic can be without people realizing it.”

Driving’s deceptive simplicity

Bowers believes modern vehicles can create a false sense of security.

“We have Bluetooth radio and leather seats that make it comfortable to be able to sit in our cars and feel like we’re sitting in our living rooms but we’re driving a very heavy, fast, dangerous machine,” he said. “Unfortunately, we respond to crashes and when things don’t go well, we’re the ones that show up and we see that.”

Following directions is fundamental to safe driving, Bowers said, and impairment compromises that ability.

“When you’re driving a vehicle, all you’re doing is following directions,” he said. “You’re looking at your speedometer, managing the steering wheel, looking at other cars around you. There’s a lot you have to manage and it’s not as simple as it seems. I think we get into a habit and just do it all the time so we feel like it’s simple but there’s a lot of stuff that you’re doing without realizing it. And so consuming drugs like cannabis can make it more difficult to do that.”

The message Bowers hopes to drive home is straightforward: “We owe it to each other to be safe while we’re driving.”

“They might not intend to speed, they might not intend to do all these things but the result can be the same regardless of the intention,” Bowers said. “We’re here to remind people to be safe, to make good decisions and to rely on each other to have a safe community. Driving is one of the most dangerous things that we do.”