A sober man was charged with a DUI after being pulled over by police in Surprise, Arizona even though he blew a 0 on his breathalyzer test.
Jessie Thornton, 64, claims that the cops said that they knew he was drunk just by looking at him. Thornton typically runs errands and goes to the gym at night but he believes a late-night swim and possibly race might have had something to do with the accusation, ABC15 reports.
According to a Surprise Police Department report, Thornton was "pulled over for crossing the white line in his lane."
"An officer walked up and he said 'I can tell you're driving DUI by looking in your eyes.' I take my glasses off and he says, 'You've got bloodshot eyes," Thornton told ABC 15.
"I said, 'I've been swimming at LA Fitness,' and he says, 'I think you're DUI ... we're going to do a sobriety test.' I said, 'OK, but I got bad knees and a bad hip with surgery in two days," he continued.
"I couldn't even sit on the ground like that and they knew it and I was like laying on the ground, then they put me in the back of an SUV and when I asked the officer to move her seat up 'cause my hip hurt she told me to stop whining."
Two other officers arrived on the scene and they gave Thornton a sobriety test.
"Yes, I do the breathalyzer and it comes back zero, zero, zero," Thornton said. With the zero grade, the issue should have been solved but police wanted to test him for drugs as well. A drug recognition expert performed tests on him while in custody.
"After he did all the tests, he says, 'I would never have arrested you, you show no signs of impairment."
Thornton said this isn't the first time he's been pulled over. It apparently happens often.
"I've been stopped 10 times in Surprise and given four tickets, it's amazing,' said Thornton.
"I then get this message that my license is being suspended and I have to take some sort of drinking class or something," he said.
Thornton believes he was accused of the DUI because he is black.
"It was driving while black," he told ABC. "I just don't want any of this to happen to somebody else," he said.
Thornton plans to sue the police department for $500,000 after this latest incident.
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