Bruce Springsteen, a musician, was arrested in November last year for DWI, news that only appeared this week and asked Jeep to pull out its Super Bowl ad with The Boss. It seems like it’s a nice cut-and-dry story, except it’s not.
Take the Asbury Park Press, for example report as of yesterday, Springsteen’s blood alcohol content was 0.02, which is well below New Jersey’s 0.08 limit.
New Jersey rock icon Bruce Springsteen’s blood alcohol content was 0.02 – just a quarter of New Jersey’s legal limit – when he was arrested at Sandy Hook in November and charged with driving while intoxicated. , a source familiar with the matter told the Asbury Park Press.
The legal threshold for intoxication for driving purposes in New Jersey is .08, which raises the question of why Springsteen was even charged with drink driving, the source said.
It was kind of huh, and then the “violation notice” was announced yesterday, and it was more “huh.” Here is the full statement from the arresting officer. Springsteen was stopped on a red and silver Triumph.
While on foot patrol, I saw a male (Bruce F. SPRINGSTEEN) consume a shot of Patron tequila and then get on his motorcycle and start the engine. I contacted SPRINGSTEEN and was informed that alcohol is prohibited at Sandy Hook. The Cartridge bottle from which the shot was thrown was completely empty (750 ml). I asked SPRINGSTEEN if he was leaving and he confirmed that he was going to drive out of the park. SPRINGSTEEN claims he had two shots of tequila in the past 20 minutes. SPRINGSTEEN smelled strongly of alcohol coming from his person and had glassy eyes. I did SPRINGSTEEN through standardized tests for sobriety. I observed four out of six clues during the horizontal look at the nystagmus test. SPRINGSTEEN visibly swung back and forth as I observed his eyes. I observed five out of eight clues during the walk-and-turn test. SPRINGSTEEN took 45 steps during the step and turn instead of command 18. SPRINGSTEEN refused to give a sample during the preliminary breath test.
G / O Media can get a commission
It all sounds damning! Except then, do you remember the 0.02 digit, which, if true, had to come from a later test. The New York Times too talked to a lawyer which in my opinion gave the most probable explanation of what went down:
Even if a blood alcohol level is below the legal limit, it is not uncommon for a person to be charged with drunk driving based on an officer’s observation during a three-part sobriety test, according to Carmine R. Villani, a criminal defense attorney in New Jersey. attorney with 30 years of experience in DWI cases.
“Everything is done as a whole,” he said. Villani said, who is not involved in the Springsteen case. “Maybe he had alcohol in his breath. Then he might not pass every aspect of the test. It’s designed to confuse people. This is a divided attention test. It’s a stressful event, and people often do not do well with it. ”
But if the blood alcohol level eventually turns out to be below 0.08 percent, the cases can often be easily resolved, Mr. Villani said.
“With a .02, it should not move the heart – you will not be nervous,” he said. At a .02, science is just not there. Someone was just not harmed. ”
It all stemmed from Springsteen’s stop talking to a fan, according to the New York Times, and I can now better understand why Springsteen continued with the Jeep ad and seemingly life as normal if people assured him that registering a 0.02 would not be a big problem.
It goes without saying that taking a shot of tequila (or two) before riding a motorcycle is not optimal, nor does drinking on federal property where drinking is not allowed, but above all, this story is just very Bruce Springsteen. Tramps like us, baby we were born to drive.