Shot in the Dark

The Hennepin County Way

He drove with a .13 blood alcohol content (as of test time, hours later, indicating he had closer to a .17 at the time of the crash).

He drove 126MPH down 94, up until he went off the road.

He drove, thus hammered, carrying his service firearm (or at least a .357 magnum revolver in a holster), at a blood alcohol level 3-4 times the level at which a civilian would lose their permit.

He lied to officers about the crash; he didn’t invoke his 5th Amendment right to remain silent (which is legal, constitutionally protected, and good); he actually lied.

The story of Sheriff Hutchinson’s DUI and crash just keeps getting worse and worse:

https://twitter.com/RebsBrannon/status/1484167367462584324

The Governor and Lieutenant Governor asked for his resignation.

But that’ll be the end of it.

Not because the DFL is out to protect Hutchinson; the “progressives” have a hand-picked candidate even more “progressive” than Hutchinson waiting for November. The DFL will endorse her, and Hutchinson will be shunted aside like last year’s model.

But until then? If the DFL let it he known that driving drunk was a real problem, they’d endanger the prospects of one of their candidates, in a year when the DFL expects to have enough problems.

That’s how life, and politics, in a one-party autocracy works.

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Mitch Berg

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19 responses to “The Hennepin County Way”

  1. jdm Avatar
    jdm

    I think there was also a service rifle. An AR-15, if I recall. With a round chambered.

  2. bosshoss429 Avatar
    bosshoss429

    Yea, it’s really funny that we now hear nothing from the defund the police crowd or from MADD.

  3. Rat Emery’s unwholesome urges for his son Avatar
    Rat Emery’s unwholesome urges for his son

    Seems like they could still charge him for the >100 MPH and lying to cops since it wasn’t included in the original charges.

    But they wont.

  4. jdm Avatar
    jdm

    the “progressives” have a hand-picked candidate even more “progressive” than Hutchinson waiting for November

    This is probably the reason that this info keeps trickling out.

  5. Night Writer Avatar
    Night Writer

    Driving drunk, at more than120 mph – and without a seatbelt – as was also reported. Are we sure this guy wasn’t actually trying to commit suicide, and decided that his guns were too messy?

  6. jdm Avatar
    jdm

    NW, you know liberals think that guns have volition? Maybe he thought one of those he took with would do the job for him?

  7. MtkaMoose Avatar
    MtkaMoose

    Hutch won’t resign. He learned the lesson from John Thompson – just ignore the noise and keep collecting the paychecks. I wouldn’t be surprised to see both re-elected given liberals’ penchant for giving people second (third, fourth, ad infinitum) chances after a slap on the wrist.

  8. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    Looks like the next person who might get kiboshed, Xiong, is also getting a nice deal from the police. It’s revealed that he got DUI, but not the BAC. That’s key because a person can get to .08 readily, possibly not realizing it (especially if small of stature), but the mean arrest level of .17 takes a bit more doing and a lot more “ignoring the obvious.”

    Dunno if Hutchinson’s stunt was a suicide attempt because guns are too messy, tho. From what I’ve seen of high speed crashes where someone dies, it’s almost always a closed casket funeral or cremation. Might be a suicide attempt, but a career officer of all people will know how gross vehicular fatalities are. Only an EMT or ER doctor/nurse knows better, I’d guess.

  9. Night Writer Avatar
    Night Writer

    “Messy” may not be issue. I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist – not even when online – but driving drunk at those speeds, without a seatbelt would seem to bring “death wish” into play. If he wanted to off himself, he might not have the nerve to deliberately shoot himself, or to be known as a cop who killed himself. The (strange) reasoning could be it’s better to take a “what will be, will be” approach which might also provide the cover of an “accident”.

    Of course, we have no indication it was a suicide attempt, or just natural numbskullery. The possibility only entered my mind after finding out he was doing 120+ mph. You’d think even a drunk would have some sense of self-preservation and not drive that fast – unless he was so blotto that he was completely unaware of how fast all those pretty lights were whizzing past him.

  10. Mammuthus Primigenesis Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenesis

    Like Hutch said — everyone does it. Yep, everyone crashes a county vehicle at 120 mph with BAC of 0.17 and a gun on their hip.

  11. Mammuthus Primigenesis Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenesis

    Hutchinson was elected. The voters can throw him out, and almost certainly will.
    Decent people should not consider Hutchinson’s resignation, or defeat at the polls, as a victory. That is the minimum that Justice requires.
    What abut all the Douglas County cops who tried to hide Hutchinson’s offense from the voters? A bottle of liquor and THC gummies found in the wreck were not listed on the property seized sheet. The cops who tried to cover for Hutchinson should be shown the door.
    https://twitter.com/RebsBrannon/status/1484211598302466048?s=20

  12. justplainangry Avatar
    justplainangry

    MP you are silly! Hutchinson to be voted out? By same people who put the current cadre of woke progressives in? Surely you jest! And to have cops being held accountable? Dude, I think you need to check your reality altering meds.

    NW, at .17 Hutch was invincible! Seatbelt? He don’t need no stinking seatbelt!

  13. Mammuthus Primigenesis Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenesis

    That’s how much I love democracy, JPA. If the people of Hennepin county want to keep Hutchinson as their sheriff, so be it. At least we are getting some honest news coverage about the situation. The voters’ eyes are open.

  14. strumdatjag Avatar
    strumdatjag

    As a lawyer with 38 years experience, after defending thousands of DWI cases, I must correct you. The fact, that Hutch tested .13 hours after the accident doesn’t mean he was .17 at the time of the accident.
    There is insufficient evidence to establish whether Hutch had an increasing or decreasing Alcohol concentration.

  15. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    Thanks for chiming in. Could you clarify your comment for me?

    I think we can assume no post-driving consumption of alcohol, so that would rule out one source of increasing test result.

    Are you thinking the Sheriff might have been sober, guzzled a quart of booze, then hopped in the car and drove 126 mph to get home before the booze hit him? That he was only .04 at the time of driving but by the time of testing, the booze caught up with him to give a test result of .13?

  16. Mammuthus Primigenesis Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenesis

    Open alcohol containers in the car

    Law enforcement officers tasked with documenting items in the county-owned SUV noted bottles of alcohol in the vehicle. That included a bottle of Eagle Rare bourbon in passenger compartment. A search warrants specifically notes “open containers,” plural, of alcoholic beverages.
    https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/hutchinson-dwi-crash-key-takeaways-from-newly-released-investigation-files

  17. Mammuthus Primigenesis Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenesis

    We can’t assume that after they got the perp at the cop house that he was denied alcohol. After an accident like that, his fellow officers might have thought that he needed a shot two to “steady his nerves.”

  18. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    Ordinarily, blood alcohol goes down after one stops drinking, unless one has drunk himself to death, no? Now we can quibble over whether he was likely at 0.15, 0.17, or 0.2 at the time of the accident, but absent any evidence that he was given alcohol after being taken to the police station, I think it is safe to assume that he was somewhere around twice the legal limit for driving and four times the legal limit for carrying a gun, especially given the open bottles and other paraphenalia of intoxicants found in teh car.

    We can quibble over whether an ordinary extrapolation is admissible in court, but I think the science is clear here. Anyone who looks at the data around this ought to come to the conclusion that the man was seriously drunk, appears to have serious substance abuse problems, and really ought to be spending the next few months at the Betty Ford center or Teen Challenge instead of his office. There are also some very troubling questions to be asked about why he was administered the test only two hours after the crash, and that with a less accurate test.

    If one was trying to mitigate the man’s issues, that’s exactly what I’d do.

  19. Rat Emery’s unwholesome urges for his son Avatar
    Rat Emery’s unwholesome urges for his son

    There is insufficient evidence to establish whether Hutch had an increasing or decreasing Alcohol concentration.

    Immediately after the last consumption, the BAC will increase. If they can establish when the last alcoholic beverage was consumed, and how much that was, ie: if they can establish where you were coming from immediately prior to being stopped (seeing you leave a parking lot, for instance) they can get a copy of the receipt, from there they can establish a higher content than recorded. I know this from personal experience.

    It’s the basis of the “driving within 2 hour” law.

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