A sergeant and deputy with the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department, whose names are being withheld, have been suspended for driving home County Executive L. Brooks Patterson after stopping him in Clarkston for driving erratically.
Patterson was pulled over Monday, June 2 at 11:35 p.m. on Dixie Highway, near White Lake, not far from his home.
In a squad car videotape released last Wednesday, Patterson appeared to walk stiff-legged and slur his words. One of the officers noted alcohol on Patterson’s breath.
However, the officers failed to test his blood alcohol level to determine if he was over the legal limit to drive.
Patterson did not return phone calls from The Clarkston News, but has said publicly he was returning home from a golf outing and was not drunk. He admits to a couple of glasses of wine at dinner that evening and taking painkillers for a shoulder injury.
Since the suspension of the deputy, who has four months of road experience, and the sergeant, who has about a year of road experience, Gary McClure, president of the Oakland County Deputy Sheriff’s Association, has disagreed with the deputy’s punishment. He feels the officer was simply following orders, and the punishment should fall on the sergeant.
‘It’s a frustrating thing to have a young officer enforcing laws and have to run into a situation like this and be suspended on top of this,? McClure said. ‘The pressures the officers are trained to deal with in the academy don’t include all the pressures in reality they will have to deal with in road patrol such as politics.?
McClure said the union is considering filing an appeal regarding the deputy’s suspension, even if the deputy does not personally appeal it himself, because the officer had no say in the decision but was acting upon orders from his sergeant.
Due to a conflict of interest, Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca, who was hired by Patterson in 1988, has asked the attorney general to review the case.
Criminal charges are unlikely to be issued against Patterson, since no sobriety tests were administered.
In a phone interview on Thursday with WJR Radio, Patterson said, ‘I apologize to these two deputies. I apologize to my staff and to the public for letting them down.?