Courtesy of Sarah Schielke and the Life & Liberty Law Office
- A Colorado resident is receiving $400,000 over his arrest for a DUI despite him passing alcohol tests.
- Harris Elias said his breath test showed a 0% alcohol content result, and his blood test was negative.
- His attorney accused the Loveland Police Department of making officers compete for DUI arrests.
A man in Colorado is set to receive $400,000 in a settlement with city authorities after being arrested for a DUI despite passing a breath and blood test.
Harris Elias, a general contractor and pilot, is to be awarded $400,000 from the city of Loveland to resolve a federal lawsuit he filed against the city and its police officers in 2022, his lawyer said on Monday evening.
Elias' complaint, seen by Business Insider, alleged that he was arrested on January 4, 2020 while driving home after a dinner party.
Loveland police officer William Gates pulled Elias over for failing to signal while changing lanes, then told Elias he smelled the "overwhelming odor of alcohol" coming from Elias' vehicle, the lawsuit said.
"Officer Gates regularly claims (falsely) that the drivers he arrests for DUI did not signal a lane change," according to Elias' suit, which was filed in January 2022. "Gates does so because this is one of the most difficult allegations to disprove, given that Loveland PD does not employ dash cams (only bodycams) and so never capture the arrested individual's actual driving."
Elias refused to take a roadside test and said he would not answer Gates' questions, which Elias claimed came at a rapid-fire pace he believed was intended to confuse him, the complaint added.
He was then brought to the local police station on a suspected DUI, it said. No drugs or alcohol were found in Elias' car, per the lawsuit.
Elias took a breath test at the station, which produced a 0% blood alcohol content reading, per the lawsuit.
"I'm not going to play this game," Gates told Elias, per bodycam footage posted by Elias' attorney.
"I'm not playing a game, this is my freedom you're talking about," Elias responded.
Police then told Elias to take a blood test, which also came back negative in March 2020 for all tested substances, the lawsuit said.
Meanwhile, Elias had his pilot's license investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration because of the DUI arrest, the complaint said.
Elias' attorney, Sarah Schielke, in March 2022 released a YouTube video alleging that Loveland Police Department officers would compete with one another, as well as other police departments, for who could make the most DUI arrests.
She cited social media posts from a Facebook page, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which promoted a timed competition for the most DUI arrests between departments.
Schielke also published screenshots of a 2021 independent assessment of the Loveland Police Department by private consultancy firm Jensen Hughes, which said officers would ignore other calls to pursue DUI arrests.
"Policing is not a game. DUI enforcement should never be a competition," Schielke said in her Monday statement. "There are innocent people's lives and jobs at stake."
Gates and the Loveland Police Chief at the time, Robert Ticer, are no longer serving in the department.
Kim Overholt, a representative for the city of Loveland, told Business Insider that there was "no admission of liability on the part of the city or its officers related to this settlement."
Overholt added that no disciplinary action was taken against Gates because he tendered his resignation before an internal affairs investigation was completed, and while Elias' civil lawsuit was still pending.
Vindication — and frustration
Even after reaching a $400,000 settlement with the town, Elias told Business Insider that he's still frustrated.
While he said there's some vindication from the settlement, he'll still upset that the police seemingly got away with it.
"They refuse to admit any wrongdoing," Elias said. "But the $400,000 speaks for itself."
The system, he said in an interview on Wednesday, is still rigged to protect officers who abuse their power.
"I don't think that this particular instance has cost enough money, enough time, or enough heartache for anyone to really make any difference," he said.
The city declined to further respond to Elias' statements.
Elias is suing another police department for a DUI arrest
Notably, Elias alleges to have later been subjected to another wrongful DUI arrest in Fort Collins, a municipality neighboring Loveland.
A separate lawsuit he filed against Fort Collins officers in May said that he was arrested on December 2, 2021 and jailed for three days — again on a suspected DUI arrest.
He had also completed a breath test and blood test, both of which eventually came back negative, said the lawsuit seen by BI.
But in the meantime, Elias had a child abuse report filed against him by an officer because his 15-year-old son was in his car, and was prohibited by a judge from driving anyone under 18 for that time period, per the lawsuit.
When the negative results from Elias' tests came back several weeks later, the case was dismissed, the lawsuit said.
It also accuses the Fort Collins Police Department of fomenting a culture of competing for DUI arrests.
"It's just striking that it was me twice," Elias told CBS News. "I'm surprised it didn't happen to more people twice. All that they cared about was one notch in their belt and I just happened to drive by twice."
Jeff Swoboda, Fort Collins' chief of police, told BI that his department would not comment on ongoing lawsuits.
"We don't speak on active or pending litigation, however we are committed to a comprehensive and fair legal process," Swoboda said.
Schielke did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours.
The system will 'protect these bad officers'
In his interview with BI, Elias said that supervisors need to be held accountable for officers' mistakes.
"It's easy to throw the officer under the bus and say, 'Well, he did it. He did it. He did it,'" Elias said. "But that's really not entirely true. He did it based on the culture that he was trained in and based on the culture that was surrounding him in this department, this and other departments as well."
He added: "The system is still set up to protect these bad officers and stand in the way of systemic change that would protect people from wrongful arrests."
Elias said he chose to settle due to the expense of continuing a legal fight against the town, as well as the emotional toll.
Agreeing to a settlement that allowed the town and police to avoid admitting culpability was "very tough for me to swallow," he told BI.
Elias said the allegations and the threat they posed to his career and peace of mind "put fear into my heart forever." Elias said it took "months of work" to resolve issues with the Federal Aviation Administration over his arrest.
"No longer do I or my children think of officers as a safe place to go, as a safe person, as a safe resource," Elias told BI.
He said he hoped that his lawsuits would begin to chip away at the broken system that allows false arrests to go unpunished.
"It is definitely a David and Goliath situation," he said. "And in this case, we won a couple of rounds and the rest is to be carried on by others."
Update December 13, 2023: This story has been updated with comments from a representative of the city of Loveland and Fort Collins' chief of police.
Update December 13, 2023: This story has been updated with comments from Harris Elias.
from All Content from Business Insider https://www.businessinsider.com/harris-elias-colorado-400000-dui-arrest-passing-tests-2023-12
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