A Darien police officer in a patrol car by the side of the road on Hoyt Street last Wednesday got a tip, according to a police, when a driver stopped to tell her that the white van the driver had been behind was driving all over the road.
The tip led to the arrest of a 42-year-old man on charges of driving while intoxicated. Darien police described what happened next in this account (including accusations not proven in court):
The officer, who had been stopped near St. John Cemetery, started following the van south on Hoyt Street at about 9:48 p.m. She saw the work van, a 2015 Mercedes Sprinter, swerving within the right lane, as the tipster had said it was, and cross the double-yellow line, as the tipster had also described.
She pulled the van over near the intersection of Hoyt Street and Briar Brae Road.
The driver, a Stamford man, had glassy, bloodshot eyes. He initially denied he was drinking, then later admitted he had one beer, but for some reason asserted that he hadn’t had any vodka. He did not pass field sobriety tests at the scene, and he was charged with driving while intoxicated.
He also couldn’t produce a valid driver’s license, so he was charged with driving without one. He was also charged with failure to drive on the right side of the road.
At Darien Police Headquarters, he didn’t blow properly into a breathalyzer device, so no blood-alcohol level was measured.
Later he was released on $250 bond and told to appear June 6 in state Superior Court in Stamford.