Alexandria Police Chief Weaves His Way Toward Retirement

Jacob Sullum | July 28, 2009

The NBC affiliate in Washington, D.C., reports that Alexandria, Virginia, Police Chief David Baker, the staunch DUI foe last seen blowing a 0.19 percent blood alcohol reading on a Breathalyzer test after a traffic accident on Saturday night, has announced his retirement with "a great deal of humility and remorse." It's a classier exit than Eliot Spitzer, guilty of similarly striking hypocrisy, managed to arrange. Then again, Spitzer's encounters with a prostitute, unlike Baker's crash, did not involve any nonconsenting parties. 

Comments

KingShamus|7.28.09 @ 3:57PM|#

Sorry, but Eliot Spitzer's demise was way more awesome. Nothing has so far beaten him fleeing public life on accusations that he jackhammered call girls in the dookie-hole.

David Baker's forced retirement is pure bush league compared to SApitzer's accomplishments.

|7.28.09 @ 4:05PM|#

Jail the bastard and take away his pension.

Warty|7.28.09 @ 4:06PM|#

Put him in the stocks. We still have stocks, right?

Xeones|7.28.09 @ 4:25PM|#

Only in certain specialty establishments, Warty.

|7.28.09 @ 4:35PM|#

I have a real problem with sobriety check points. But I also think that this posting and glee over the guy's arrest is a cheap shot. It is a logical fallacy to claim that something is okay to do just because the people charged with enforcing the rule also break it. It is certainly possible that this guy was both right to try to stop drunk driving and wrong to drink and drive. One really has nothing to do with the other. If it did, then he would have been right to create bullshit sobriety checkpoints as long as he didn't drink and drive himself.

The fact that this guy is apparently a drunk driver has no bearing on the question of whether this guy was right or wrong in creating the checkpoints.

If Reason wants to criticize Alexandria's Nazi style papers please check points, I am with them. But this just makes them look like pricks.

|7.28.09 @ 4:35PM|#

shit like this makes me want to be a public employee. my disdain for the public teat would lead me to self-loathing and i'd have to swallow a bullet though.

Enyap|7.28.09 @ 4:38PM|#

Is it alcohol topic day on hit and run or something

|7.28.09 @ 4:41PM|#

"Put him in the stocks. We still have stocks, right?"

Yes, but they're high-tech nowadays, just like the lynchings.

Paul|7.28.09 @ 4:46PM|#

Whoa...WHOA... this guy submitted to the breath test? Public officials never submit to breath tests. What gives? Do I have to take back everything I said?

|7.28.09 @ 4:46PM|#

I wonder if his retirement is at risk in any way, or if it is guaranteed regardless.

John, although the glee is unseemly, it is in line with the fundamental (libertarian) value of applying the law equally to all, regardless of position. We can oppose the law, and still require that, if it is to be enforced, it should be enforced equally on all.

Like Spitzer, this guy made a living out of enforcing laws on other people that he broke himself. That, I think, justifies the glee.

Paul|7.28.09 @ 4:49PM|#

Want to Know If You Should Refuse an Alcohol Test? Ask an Elected Official.

"To take or not to take an alcohol test?" That is the question that every person who is suspected of drunk driving must ask. When faced with such a potentially life-altering decision, perhaps its best to get some guidance from our elected officials. According to a report in the Austin American Statesman, the rate of refusal for elected officials in Texas, when accused of drunk driving, is 100%. Among the general public, the rate of refusal is about 50%.

From here

Looks like david baker learned the hard way.

Candy Lightner|7.28.09 @ 4:57PM|#

Although the Nazi Blood Law was a little different than the ones on this continent, the premise is still the same - you must have governement approved blood or bad things will happen.

The chief had illegal blood.

|7.28.09 @ 5:04PM|#

One of the more creative Godwinning attempts by Candy @ 4:57. Bravo!

|7.28.09 @ 5:14PM|#

RC,

I don't think that there is any problem with applying the law to him. I just think that it is not worth mentioning unless they somehow fail to apply it to him.

Rich|7.28.09 @ 5:16PM|#

"As I leave the department in your most capable hands ..."

That is,
As I, in your most capable hands, leave the department ...

As J sub D noted, he ain't *that* sorry.

Ska|7.28.09 @ 5:39PM|#

Chalk up one more reason to resent LEOs. Blows a .19 (what's legal in VA, .08?). Bastard.

|7.28.09 @ 5:43PM|#

But I also think that this posting and glee over the guy's arrest is a cheap shot.

As soon as cops start getting arrested for screaming or cussing at citizens, when they start getting locked in a cell with winos and cracheads overnight for accusing somebody of something they were not guilty of, I'll stop expressing glee when the bastards get nailed.

I promise. Just let me know when that happens.

|7.28.09 @ 5:49PM|#

But I also think that this posting and glee over the guy's arrest is a cheap shot.

No, John--like Spitzer (oh how wonderful that was), this is particularly excellent because the guy was such a DUI enforcer. I would bet a lot of money he submitted to the test because he thought it would just get ignored, because he was Chief. Just like Spitzer moved money around in ways that he should have known would snag him because he fucking pioneered snagging people that way.

Though KingShamus is correct in that this is no where near the complete sublime awesomeness of Spitzer's downfall.

Paul|7.28.09 @ 6:32PM|#

It's almost as good as the Million Mom March organizer getting busted for a weapons violation.

Paul|7.28.09 @ 6:37PM|#

Though KingShamus is correct in that this is no where near the complete sublime awesomeness of Spitzer's downfall.

It's 'cause he's not the national figure Spitzer was. The bigger they are...

Rhywun|7.28.09 @ 6:51PM|#

Whoa...WHOA... this guy submitted to the breath test?

Well, he WAS drunk at the time.

PantsFan|7.28.09 @ 6:55PM|#

There exist certain jurisdictions in which refusing the breathalyzer results in:
You will immediately receive a three-month administrative driver's license suspension, including disqualification from driving any vehicle including all-terrain or off-road vehicles.
Your vehicle will be impounded for at least 60 days.

Paul|7.28.09 @ 7:07PM|#

You will immediately receive a three-month administrative driver's license suspension, including disqualification from driving any vehicle including all-terrain or off-road vehicles.
Your vehicle will be impounded for at least 60 days.

Yeah, I'm still taking my cues from the elected officials, refuse the breathalyzer, then have your lawyer work out those details above. No conviction... no sentence. Works for elected officials.

EscapedWestofTheBigMuddy|7.28.09 @ 7:08PM|#

I have a real problem with sobriety check points. But I also think that this posting and glee over the guy's arrest is a cheap shot. It is a logical fallacy to claim that something is okay to do just because the people charged with enforcing the rule also break it.

I'll tell you what: he can catch a break right after he fixes the injustice that he perpetrated on the victims of his DUI crusade, OK?

I'll even be a dead game sport, and say he only need to fix it for the people he screwed in the last two years. Once he's finished that, he can get off too, but until then I shall point and laugh and raise a glass to his suffering.

Or to quote a movie: "Some men you just can't reach. Then you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it." I certainly hope that he does.

|7.28.09 @ 7:39PM|#

F**k u John

Art-P.O.G.|7.29.09 @ 3:28AM|#

Not now, John.

PC|7.29.09 @ 11:19AM|#

Throw him to MADD. I can see them now, ripping his flesh apart, as they reach bacchantic ecstasy.

EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy|7.29.09 @ 1:13PM|#

Throw him to MADD. I can see them now, ripping his flesh apart, as they reach bacchantic ecstasy.

I'm all for seeing people hoist on their own petards, but that might be beyond the pale.

I mean, "cruel and unusual punishment", anyone?

KingShamus|7.29.09 @ 5:05PM|#

DDAMM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-_aIrSumK8&feature=player_embedded