I'm sure everyone is sick to death of hearing about the police shooting of a groom at his bachelor partyby now, or will be very shortly, but I have a question to ask about this-- two drinks?
I'm not going to comment on the other aspects of the story, because whatever happens there will probably be played out in excessive detail in the press very shortly, but the fact that the officers were "authorized to have two drinks, no more" really pisses me off. What the hell kind of enforcement regulation was that?
Everyone always hears about the problems with drinking and driving, drinking and operating heavy machinery, drinking and getting a tattoo, even drunk dialing, for God's sake. It would seem to me that drinking on duty as a law enforcement officer is just simply taboo by common sense.
According to the Blood Alcohol Calculator on the OUPD website, a 200-pound police officer would have a .02% blood alcohol level (BAL) after two beers over two hours. His BAL jumps to .04% if he decides to have two martinis instead of beers, not to mention a BAL of .07% if he's going for Hairy Buffalos, which seems doubly idiotic from the get-go. Now, considering that the legal impairment limit is .08%, it would seem imprundent to allow these officers to handle firearms. After all, you can't drive a car at that point, right? Considering that at .04% you start to have impairment of reasoning and memory, as well as a lowering of inhibitions and a loss of caution, what's the obvious conclusion here?
I think those policemen are in for a heap of trouble on this one.
