Highway checkpoint asks drivers for blood, saliva
Pastor Dale Morgan
Highway checkpoint asks drivers for blood, saliva*
Travelers outraged by private research group's request
Posted: September 20, 2007
Denver Post
Motorists in Colorado are expressing outrage over a weekend stunt in
Gilpin County, about an hour's drive west of Denver, where highway
checkpoints were set up so a private organization could ask for samples
of blood and saliva.
"I don't think they're authorized to do what they're doing, and I view
it as a gross violation of law-enforcement protocol," Roberto Sequeira,
51, told reporters for the Denver Post.
He said he and his wife were "detained" for about 15 minutes even after
they protested they wanted to get home because of a sleepy child in
their car.
Sheriff's officials were apologizing after they helped set up and run
five separate checkpoints over the weekend.
They said workers for the Institute for Research and Evaluation were
overly persistent in their demands of innocent travelers.
"It was like a telemarketer that you couldn't hang up on," Undersheriff
John Bayne told the newspaper.
Sgt. Bob Enney said the deputies' assistance to the organization
involved stopping motorists at the sites along Colorado Highway 119 for
"surveys" on any drug or alcohol use. Surveyors also requested that
motorists submit to breath, blood and saliva tests.
Enney said several hundred motorists were tested, and some later complained.
Sequeira said he repeatedly asked if the questioners were law
enforcement officials and said he was not interested in participating in
the study, but still was not given clearance to leave.
He told the newspaper that he and his family were approached by two
researchers, and even after his repeated refusals, officials offered his
wife, who was driving, $100 to get the couple to take part in a breath test.
"I think it's very dangerous," he told the newspaper. "Sometimes at
checkpoints, unfortunate things happen."
PIRE spokeswoman Michelle Blackston said that the deputies "did not
stop" any drivers. "It was a voluntary survey. … Nobody approached them.
There were signs saying that a survey was taking place. Nobody waved
them down."
She said she was unaware whether the private organization reimbursed the
county for the expense of having the deputies at the traffic sites. The
organization's own researchers get the results of the work, she said.
Also to the newspaper, PIRE officials defended their actions. They said
such statistics are important to gauge the impact of laws and
enforcement policy. Their questions began over the summer and will
continue at other locations around the nation through November, they said.
"We've been literally surveying thousands of people," John Lacey, of the
Alcohol, Policy and Safety Research Center, said. It's through that
organization PIRE is doing its research.
He said researchers push a few of those who initially refuse to
participate to reconsider – even offering incentives.
"If we don't do that, the criticism will come out that we had so many
who were refusers," Lacey told the newspaper.
Bayne said a similar study was done in the county several years ago,
with no complaints, but he admitted last weekend's effort was aggressive.
"The people were too persistent," he told the Post. "Some people didn't
feel it was voluntary."
Officials with the Colorado chapter of the American Civil Liberties
Union said the fact that sheriff's deputies were on the scene, and
surveyors wore blue jumpsuits, could have confused drivers.
Sequeira said his family was directed by sheriff's officials to pull
over and he and his wife were greeted by "youthful, college" surveyors.
"We had a 10-year-old in the back who's tired, we tell them thanks but
no thanks, we have to get this child back home to bed," he told the
paper. But the workers persisted, telling them they would be provided
help driving home if needed. Then they offered the $100.
"We say, 'No thank you, we have to get our child home,'" he recalled.
"At this point, both clones start chortling at us and ridiculing us."
On a newspaper forum, the opinion was running fairly close to unison:
"The very act of pulling a motorist over subjects him/her and their
vehicle (at very least) to a visual search. This means if the motorist
was pulled over without suspicion of violating a law, than (sic) they
have been subjected to an unlawful search…," wrote Warren Gregory.
"For the record the proper response to ANY such incursion into privacy
is to ask the question, Am I under Arrest? If the answer is no ask if
you are free to go. If you are told no demand to be arrested or you will
leave and then leave," added Frank Vicek.