Tip: When driving toward a police patrol car at 3:30 a.m., do not suddenly turn off your headlights. It will not make you less conspicuous.
That, according to a Darien police report, is what a 17-year-old Darien boy did last Thursday while driving north on Long Neck Point Road (to be fair, we don’t actually know why he turned off the headlights). The result was that the police officer turned around, followed the 2007 Jeep Wrangler and saw it cross over the yellow line on the roadway. The officer pulled over the vehicle.
Police described what happened next in this account (including accusations not proven in court):
The officer smelled alcohol when talking to the driver and, for some reason not stated in the report, patted him down. That turned up a clear plastic sandwich bag that contained 9.2 grams of marijuana.
The teenager was directed to perform field sobriety tests, which he did not pass. He was arrested on charges of driving while under the influence, possession of marijuana, failure to stay on the right side of the road and driving without headlights on.
At Darien Police Headquarters, a breath test on the boy turned up nothing. Police took a urine sample, which will be tested to see if there were any other drugs in the driver’s body. Police are still awaiting the results of that test.
The boy said the marijuana found in his pants pocket not only wasn’t his, but he had no idea how it got there. He said he had one or two beers earlier that night.