The ladies and I entered my Jeep Grand Cherokee, me opening the door for Miss [pge*], who assumed the passenger position, and we made our way from Court St. down to the green. Upon getting to the cross walk at between University Terrace and Park Place I was greeted by a stop sign. I came to a stop and continued down the hill. Half way down the hill I see lights flash in my review mirror. I slow down thinking the cops are about to speed up and be in pursuit of an emergency and then finally I go to a complete stop as I realize this the signal was to me. I tell everyone in the car to be calm, as I know I have no prior problems on my car, and I am sure we will be fine. The cop takes a minute to get to the car and when he finally does he knocks on the window, I roll my window down, smile, and he ask me if I know why he pulls me over this evening. I reply saying I do not. He tells me that I ran a stop sign at the top of the hill and ask if I have insurance. I furnish both my insurance papers and my driver’s license. He takes those and does what he does to verify those. He tells me that my registration is expired and I go into a conversation letting him know I was going to get those switched on Monday, thinking I had a full month before they expired, my birthday was only a few weeks ago. But with having gotten stopped after midnight I was toeing the line between January and February. He then ask if my door opens. I tell him no and he reaches for the door to check for himself. He proceeds then to ask me to get out of the car. I have to climb out of the passenger door, requiring Miss [pge*] to exit the vehicle. Before I exit, while he is still standing at the window he says he smells alcohol on me, which I doubt to be true, as I had not been drinking in the last hour or two, and I took a swig of mouth wash when I noticed he was taking a long time to get to my car.

We stand on the sidewalk by my car and I inquire once again what this is all about. I tell him I deny the stop sign, while making a big deal out of the expired registration, because my mother and I had just had a conversation about not getting caught with expired registration. The fact that I knew he suspected alcohol to be involved had nothing to do with this case, as I knew I was not intoxicated. The officer then proceeds to tell me that he wants to run a sobriety test on me. He explains the first test to me, which is a pen tests. He asks me if I understand the rules of the test which is to follow the pen with my eyes without moving my head. I do so and he says, “ok, thank you very much.” He then asks me if I would mind taking another, in the spirit of cooperation, as I believe I am fine, and I am in hopes of going home I agree. We walk across the street and he asks to hold my hands out at me sides and to count to 30 by thousandths. I told him I had been having problems in my knees and ankles after being asked if I have any problems and I begin the test. I do, tipping over two or three times, no more than any person, as keeping balance, especially in the cold and being nervous is a difficult task. He then ask that I walk nine steps, and on the tenth I turn around walk count nine more steps. I do so in succession, and then he once again explains what he was testing me for. He ask that I get in the car with him and we are going to go to the police station. I ask him if I can give my keys to one of the ladies in the in the car, so they can drive it home safely. He informs me my car is being towed and neither of the ladies would be able to drive my car anywhere. He asks for my keys and then the other officer walks to my car, I guess to inform the ladies what is going to happen, and he starts to look through my car. As we are driving by I mention that I didn’t give permission for that and I would like my doors to be locked.

He takes me into the office and he says something about a waiver. The officer and I discuss a possible waiver for the tow and he lets me know it doesn’t exist. He then informs me that my license will be suspended for three months. I agree and begin to explain him my situation at OU and why I was asking about the tow prices and why one of the ladies couldn’t drive my car home, especially knowing that there was a non drinker in the group. The arresting officer begins talking to me about something, I sense his attitude rising, but I remain calm. Someone from the other room comes over the walkie and lets him know that I have someone at the office for me. He then continues with his speech to me, and the officer comes back on the walkie and tells him that everyone can hear him, and he should turn off his walkie. I think this is suspicious. After a small lecturing from him on my behavior he erupts and suggest I prove him wrong on the topic of me being drunk or not, which I am not. He asks me to blow into a breathalyzer and explains the rules of that to me. He tells me if I stop in the middle of blowing I will automatically fail. He presses some buttons, and tell me he is clearing the system out. He then ask me to step up to the machine and blow. I blow and it seems like its for like a minute. In the middle I start coughing and he scolds me, telling me I am going to fail. I tell him I couldn’t breath anymore and he tells me to start blowing again. He didn’t clear the machine, he just told me to blow, which I did after his repeated pressuring. I did and I got my result, .148.

He fills out a ticket and explains to me what everything means. He asks me to sign and tells me it really didn’t matter if I signed or not, because I could check, “refusal to sign.” I try to read over the paper and he snatches it from me, reminding me that I could have just checked refusal to sign if I didn’t want to sign it. He signs an x over the refusal to sign, I use slashes. I inform him that I just wanted read over the document, and I wasn’t refusing. He gives me another paper to sign, explains it to me, and then expects me to sign without reading. He hands me the paper and I try to read over it. He gets angry with me and tells me that I am going to go to jail if I don’t sign. I plead with him to let me read before signing, he calls his partner on the walkie and informs him they are going to take me to jail. I try to explain my side of the story, letting the officer know I have no problem signing the paper, I would just like to read for myself what I am signing before I actually sign it. His partner, Officer Ryan, seems to agree to my side with his body language but does not verbally say so. He is told by his partner to cuff me and he does so. They put me in cuffs, and then put me in the car. Officer Tim Ryan drives me to Nelsonville, him and I have a small conversation about my cooperativeness, which he says was good, and then he informs me of his age. We arrive in Nelsonville the tell me to take off my clothes so I can go into the cell. I notice that I am the only one standing in underwear, everyone else has on jeans and shirt, I have on long johns and a beater on. I am in and out of the cell while they ask me questions and get me to sign papers. I ask Officer Vanbibber if it is ok for me to read over the papers, and he agrees that I can.

A few hours later, my bail comes to get me and I am allowed to go home, fairly easily once I get to Nelsonville.