Drunk man tries to make getaway in squad car

STACY VOGEL 

The Janesville Gazette   

Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009

JANESVILLE — A man whose blood alcohol level was more than five times the legal definition of intoxication apparently tried to make a getaway attempt in a squad car Aug. 7, according to a report from the Rock County Sheriff’s Office.

He was one of 10 people cited for underage drinking outside a home in the 9400 block of West Mineral Point Road, Center Township.

Deputies responded at 11:22 p.m. to an anonymous complaint and found 30 to 40 cars parked outside, the report says. Several vehicles were leaving the scene when deputies arrived. The house was dark and no one would come out, the report says.

As a deputy peered inside, a 20-year-old Janesville man walked out of a cornfield, the report says. The man admitted he’d been drinking, and deputies put him in the back seat of a squad car.

A few minutes later, Deputy Matthew Jacobson heard the squad car’s alarm going off and saw the 20-year-old man in the driver’s seat. When asked where he was going, the man said he wanted to go back with his friends. He was cited for obstructing a police officer, handcuffed and put in the back seat.

The man submitted to a breath test and blew a 0.41, more than five times the level considered intoxicated, the report says. Jacobson thought the result might be a mistake, so he had the man take another test with a different breath-testing machine, resulting in a 0.38 reading.

He was issued a citation for underage drinking, second offense, and his mother picked him up from the jail, the report says. Jacobson advised the mother to watch the man and suggested she take him to Mercy Hospital, but the man was not seen at the hospital, a spokeswoman there said.

When contacted Friday, the man said he wasn’t sure how much he drank that night but estimated “a couple of cups” of beer. He said he thinks the breath tests were inaccurate.

He denied making an escape attempt but admitted he didn’t remember everything that happened that night.

Nine other people were cited for underage drinking during the incident, including seven who were discovered in two vehicles driving away from the party, one who was in the driveway and one a deputy discovered passed out in a ditch across the street, the report says.