{"id":80259,"date":"2021-12-10T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-10T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=80259"},"modified":"2021-12-10T07:48:14","modified_gmt":"2021-12-10T13:48:14","slug":"sheriff-hutchinson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=80259","title":{"rendered":"Sheriff Hutchinson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My question isn’t whether Sheriff Hutchinson drove impaired last weekend<\/a> – though it seems likelyl. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s not why – cops are prone to drinking, and it’s been a rough couple years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s not whether he drove in a county vehicle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s not whether he got favorable treatment from the State Patrol – which didn’t post the details of his crash for nearly half a day (2.5 hours is the norm), or took a urine test rather than a more accurate. blood test when Hutchinson got to the hospital. Cops generally look out for cops. Of course the Patrol went easy on the Sheriff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

No. My question is this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sheriff was said to have been partying at a resort full of sheriffs, at the State Sheriff’s Association meeting, at the Arrowwood Resort near Alexandria – a room full of people whose departments spend a lot of time, and earn a big part of their budgets, arresting, prosecuting and fining drunk drivers – very frequently, people with blood alcohol levels between .08 and .1, which in most people is barely perceptible intoxication, a lowering of the limit that was almost entirely done to allow more arrests and prosecutions of people pulled over for other offenses – tail-lights, expired tabs – after a beer or two. They run departments whose deputies have prosecuted DUI cases that have gotten many menaces off the road, it’s true – and also put a “DUI” on the recrods of nearly 10% of Minnesotans – a blotch that goes on to infringe their civil rights, their employment prospects, and their status in the community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, nobody in that resort full of sheriffs thought to tell Hutchinson “er, maybe you oughtta stay and have a couple cups of coffee, or bunk up at a Best Western for the night”, or anything of the sort. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

No – off he went. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, one presumes, off most of them went, as well, presumably after a bump or two themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nobody in that room full of people that have helped arrest and convict 10% of the entire state of DUI<\/em> thought to pull Hutchinson aside?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My question isn’t whether Sheriff Hutchinson drove impaired last weekend – though it seems likelyl. It’s not why – cops are prone to drinking, and it’s been a rough couple years. It’s not whether he drove in a county vehicle. It’s not whether he got favorable treatment from the State Patrol – which didn’t post […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime-and-punishment","category-unions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80260,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80259\/revisions\/80260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}