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Story by: By Jaime Adame, World staff writer
Posted: Monday - February 26, 2007
ROCK ISLAND — A Rock Island man arrested for driving under the influence received $7,000 earlier this month in a settlement from the state after filing a false arrest claim against the Washington State Patrol.
“I wanted a lot more for what it put me through,” Terry Vance, 61, said Friday. He was never jailed or handcuffed, though he was in police custody for about two hours.
The state admits no wrongdoing as part of the settlement. “There was no false arrest,” said Monica Hunter, a sergeant in the State Patrol’s office of government and media relations.
Vance, who works in the Douglas County Assessor’s office, said he couldn’t stand up straight when he was pulled over by a State Patrol trooper on the night of July 8. He admitted to drinking part of a glass of wine and taking pain medication earlier that day.
But it was back pain, not alcohol or drugs, that Vance said he knew would keep him from passing a field sobriety test.
Vance said that’s what he told Trooper Ron Cantwell, who was profiled in a 2005 article in The Wenatchee World with a headline, “Trooper among best at nabbing DUIs.”
“He said, ‘I don’t care, I want you to take it,’ ” Vance said.
Vance tried to follow the orders — stand on one foot, walk heel-to-toe — but he failed the test. Despite registering a near zero on a portable breath test designed to measure blood-alcohol concentration, Vance was told he was under arrest.
“I absolutely couldn’t believe it,” Vance said. He was then taken from where he and his wife were pulled over, on Highway 28 near the Rock Island Hydro Park, to the East Wenatchee Police Station.
There he said he passed an exam from a Wenatchee police officer trained to recognize whether someone is under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
“I thought he (Cantwell) was just going to turn me loose,” Vance said. But the DUI arrest was not cleared that night, although the charge would later be dismissed by Douglas County prosecutors.
Gordon Edgar, a deputy prosecutor for Douglas County, said he didn’t handle the case. But he said that just because a DUI charge is dismissed, that doesn’t mean that an officer is wrong to arrest someone.
“The police are not supposed to be basing their arrests on whether they can get a conviction, they’re basing their arrests primarily on public safety,” Edgar said. He said his office “on occasion” reduces or dismisses DUI charges, but said he couldn’t say how often that happens.
Vance filed a false arrest claim, sparking a State Patrol investigation into Cantwell, but no disciplinary action was taken against Cantwell, said Hunter.
Instead, “a training issue” was uncovered, she said. Cantwell did not submit the report from the second officer to prosecutors, and has been ordered to undergo training so that such a mistake won’t happen again, Hunter said, adding that Cantwell had not received the report from the second officer at the time he submitted his paperwork.
Still, Cantwell did nothing wrong in arresting Vance, she said. She explained that Cantwell and other troopers rely on their experience and various observations to make a decision about whether or not someone should be arrested for driving under the influence.
A request for comment from Cantwell was denied by State Patrol officials. They did, however, release the arrest report written by Cantwell.
In his report, Cantwell describes how he pulled Vance over after seeing his Dodge truck “drift to the right, crossing the fog line by about two tire widths then with a jerking motion correct the vehicle back into the lane of travel. I observed the vehicle do this two more times.”
Vance said that, since he hurt his back in a car accident in 2000, “I crowd the white line.” He said he didn’t know if he had crossed the line or not.
Vance does not deny parts of Cantwell’s report. He admits to telling Cantwell that he had taken pain medication earlier in the day, and to telling Cantwell he had drunk part of a glass of wine (the report says half a glass) at a wedding reception not long before getting behind the wheel.
But Vance denies having slurred speech, something Cantwell notes on his report.
John Brangwin, lawyer for Vance, criticized Cantwell, alleging that he cuts corners to boost his arrest statistics. In 2004, Cantwell made 209 DUI arrests, ranking second in the state among all troopers.
The arrest “really upset me,” Vance said, explaining how he was not allowed to take any pain medication while undergoing exams in the East Wenatchee police station, and how his family had to wait for him outside the station.
Edgar, the deputy prosecutor, said he has handled about 1,000 DUI cases, including several where an arrest or report was made by Cantwell.
“I’ve never had problems with his credibility or with his professional opinion about whether an individual was unfit to drive a motor vehicle,” Edgar said.
Brangwin said “it’s not a crime to have a bad back and drive in Washington.”
“State troopers and other police officers have to be able to tell the difference between someone who has physical ailments and someone who is under the influence,” Brangwin said.
Jaime Adame may be reached at 664-7144 or by e-mail at
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