At 3:28 a.m. on Sunday, Feb. 12, a passer-by told police that he saw a vehicle stopped on the Post Road, facing the opposite direction of the northbound lane it was in, and with the driver asleep at the wheel. The vehicle’s engine was running, and the gear was in reverse.
The passer-by reached in, put the gear in park, turned the car off and took the keys. Then he called police.
(All information in this account is from Darien Police, and it includes accusations not proven in court.)
When police arrived at the scene, near the intersection of the Post Road and Old Kings Highway North, the passer-by approached the officers and handed them the keys to the vehicle.
By that point, the driver, Julio Flores, 40, of Bridgeport, was awake and standing by the curb. He told police that he was coming from Bridgeport and, he said, “practicing how to drive.”
Flores agreed to perform standard field sobriety tests, but couldn’t perform them to the standard, so he was charged with deriving under the influence and driving a vehicle without a license.
At Police Headquarters, Flores submitted to a breathalyzer test, which showed a blood-alcohol content of 0.2083 at 5:16 a.m. and 0.1967 at 5:37 a.m. Both readings were more than double the legally allowed 0.08.
Flores, of Pembroke Street in Bridgeport, was later released after paying 10% of his $500 bond. His case is in state Superior Court in Stamford.