By Jim Hannah
Enquirer staff writer

A Fort Thomas police officer's decision not to arrest a Newport officer suspected of driving drunk wasn't illegal.

But that doesn't make it right, criminal justice experts say.

Ohio and Kentucky police officers have discretionary rights, law experts say. Yet Campbell County Attorney Justin Verst, whose office prosecutes all drunken driving cases in the Northern Kentucky county, said he doesn't condone letting people go.

"I think the Newport officer should have been charged," Verst said Friday, a day after Fort Thomas police released a video of the DUI stop.

"It makes the whole system look bad. I don't care who the person stopped knows. I don't care who he is."

The grainy video from a police cruiser's dashboard camera shows Fort Thomas Officer Adam Brown letting someone drive Newport Police Sgt. Mark Crank home instead of arresting Crank on suspicion of drunken driving.

The video taken of the stop at 1:23 a.m. Aug. 10 on the Interstate 471 ramp to Interstate 275 west shows Crank repeatedly refusing to take a field sobriety test and being uncooperative.

"You were all over the road, sir," Brown said to Crank. "I mean, you almost wrecked the car three different times while I was following you. In fact, at one point you were just inches shy of going off the left-hand side of the road back there."

Crank told Brown he had "a couple drinks" at Huddle's Cafe, a Newport bar. Other times Brown is heard saying on the video that Crank, "reeked" of alcohol, had slurred speech and was having trouble standing.

While Crank wasn't arrested, he faces disciplinary action from his department. Brown, and the Fort Thomas sergeant on duty that night, Todd Dedman, have received counseling from the chief as a result of the incident..

Verst, who hadn't received a copy of the video as of Friday afternoon, said he would review the incident to see if there was enough evidence for him to prosecute Crank on drunken driving charges. Legal experts say it is unlikely there is enough evidence because no sobriety tests were conducted.

Still, many questioned the Fort Thomas police decision.

"You can't have a double standard," said Rodney Brewer, who retired as deputy commissioner of Kentucky State Police this month to take a teaching post at the University of Louisville. "When you do that, it creates an even bigger divide between the public and the police. It boils down to police are not above the law."

Brewer, who had not seen the video, said it would make a good instructional tool to show criminal justice majors "everything" not to do during a drunken driving stop.

"I'm not aware of any police officer cutting another police officer slack in situations such as this. You can't."

Eastern Kentucky University Professor Tom Reed said the incident illustrates what has come to be known as the "Blue Veil."

"You see it everywhere ... all the time," said Reed, who teaches ethics at the College of Justice and Safety. "... The tendencies are to close ranks and not to say anything."

He said most departments do not have a mandatory arrest policy. Kentucky State troopers, however, are trained to arrest drunken drivers.

Reed said it is important that officers be totally above reproach to keep the community's respect.

"You start cutting favors, and before you know it, you've gone down the proverbial 'slippery slope,' " he said.

West Chester Police Chief John Bruce says that, in general, police in Ohio have discretion when they pull over those they suspect are driving drunk. "If we determine in our mind they are driving under the influence, we certainly have a moral obligation," he said.

"But there's not a law that requires any police officer to make an arrest. ... That's up to them."

Andrea Rehkamp, executive director for MADD of Southwestern Ohio, knows the law.

She thinks it's wrong.

Rehkamp said she believes police ethically and morally should arrest those they suspect of drunken driving. "But that doesn't mean they abide by that," she said. "They take an oath to uphold and to enforce the law but, unfortunately, they also are given discretion and can use their discretion."

Rehkamp said a drunken off-duty police officer killed a 26-year-old male cousin of hers in Seattle, Wash., on Jan. 1, 1999.

Situations like the Fort Thomas police stop in which Crank was driven home, she said, are upsetting.

"When I see things like this, it's really discouraging to think that they would drive him home," she said. At least they didn't let him go back out on the roadway. But when you see officers that get paid and their profession is to arrest people for driving drunk and then they go out and do it, it's really discouraging."

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Reporter Jennifer Edwards contributed. E-mail jhannah@enquirer.com