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CCN reporter arrested on DUI charge for .06 blood alcohol level

August 21, 2013
Josh Walsh

Josh Walsh

By JOSH FRIEDMAN and DANIEL BLACKBURN

CalCoastNews reporter and co-founder Karen Velie was taken into custody on Aug. 13 after a San Luis Obispo police officer arrested her on suspicion of driving under the influence. Officer Josh Walsh placed Velie under arrest after her blood alcohol test showed a .06. California’s drunk driving laws require an arrest if a driver has a .08 alcohol level.

The arrest comes during CalCoastNews investigations into activities at CAPSLO, the county’s nonprofit that serves homeless persons as well as wrongdoing over the handling of hazardous wastes.

Walsh said at the time of the arrest that he would have arrested her even if she had a blood alcohol level of as little as .01, Velie said. California law prohibits driving while intoxicated no matter what the blood alcohol level.

At the time of the arrest, Velie had just finished teaching a bridge class at a San Luis Obispo restaurant.

Twenty-four people attended the class, several of whom saw Velie minutes before the traffic stop. After the arrest, Velie spoke to the majority of the class members, all of whom said she was clearly not intoxicated.

“I only saw her have one glass of wine and she looked fine,” said San Luis Obispo attorney Stew Jenkins. “She did not appear to be under the influence at all.”

Medical doctor Gary Foresman agreed.

“I witnessed her. She was coherent,” Foresman said. “She was teaching bridge to myself and my wife and she was unequivocally not drunk when I left that night.”

Foresman left the restaurant shortly before Velie did.

Former San Luis Obispo police officer Mike Brennler said the arrest of Velie was out of the ordinary.

“In my 33-year law enforcement career, the standard procedure was to release someone who submitted to a breath test that demonstrated they were under the state limit,” Brennler said.

“Bookings in such misdemeanor cases were very rare.”

The arrest and its aftermath appeared to be directly connected to the news agency’s recent reporting on county homeless issues. It came following a months-long series of articles by CalCoastNews detailing activities of Dee Torres, CAPSLO homeless services director. Torres is the fiancé of County Supervisor Adam Hill.

Since the arrest, CalCoastNews opponents have used the alleged DUI as the focal point of a smear campaign targeting CalCoastNews and its advertisers.

Hill sent text messages to CalCoastNews advertisers Tuesday morning informing them of Velie’s arrest.

The text message and email campaign targeting advertisers followed directly in the wake of CalCoastNews reporting on a slander suit filed by Torres against Brennler, who is represented by Jenkins.

CalCoastNews reported on Aug. 19 that Brennler had challenged a sworn statement that Torres filed in her suit. Torres was not truthful in her statement, Brennler said. A hearing on a motion to dismiss the suit is scheduled for Thursday morning.

CalCoastNews also recently published text messages sent by Hill to a key witness in the case, in which the supervisor attempted to get the witness to change his story. That story, which appeared on Aug. 16 showed exchanges between Hill and Ralph Almirol, a former boyfriend of Torres. In the texts, Hill tried to get Almirol to withdraw his statement that he and Torres used gift cards that were intended for the homeless for themselves.


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So, so disappointed in this article. Having taught DUI classes for twenty years, a .06 is a perfectly acceptable level for an arrest. I had a man in class with a .02 arrest that held. Do you really think Officer Walsh would risk his career and reputation on a vendetta? Karen is mad at the world right now and I hope she gets the help she needs so she can continue writing real news with CCN.


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Yea, she really needs help. She really hit rock bottom, volunteering her time and having one glass of wine. Jeeze. Get a new logon ID officer.


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QUOTING JUSTIFIEDNIPOMO: “Do you really think Officer Walsh would risk his career and reputation on a vendetta?”


Are you kidding me? With all the scandals in our police agencies, you ask that question? Heck, some would risk their career and reputation for a b-job.


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Okay then. Game on. ADVERTISERS, listen up. Clearly this paper is doing a great job of REAL investigative reporting. I like that, appreciate it, and demand it. I will be actively purchasing products from all advertisers that support this paper.


If you want to help, make it known as you spend your money that you came because of CCN.


Thank you CCN for all your work.


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This is a larger problem than just targeting Karen Velie.


SLO pimps the city and county’s wine-tourist industry like crazy.


How many winery tourists would continue to visit our county if it became widely known (perhaps on message boards that target California wine-industry tourists) that they can get arrested for a DUI if they blow a 0.1 on a breathalyzer?


California Wine Month is coming up, and will be celebrated in September and October. While I’m sure the SLO City and County would love to have the extra funding by arresting every winery tourist who blew a 0.1 on a breathalyzer, I think they would lose far more by being known as a City and County where you can get a DUI for a 0.1 blow.


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You mean to say 0.01, correct?


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Yes, thank you.


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I’m with you, I pay attention to who advertises on CCN and try to support them!


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So, 23 people say “Thumbs Down?” What does that mean? They don’t agree with supporting this paper? Against real investigative reporting? Who would be against the truth other than those content to lie? Wow.


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Wow. Just wow. Cataloguing the issues with this article would require a government grant, a team of fact checkers, and an Evel Knievel-sized leap of logic. The sole fact that you’ve posted the name and PHOTO of the arresting officer is enough to make one’s head spin.


What you have here is embarrassing, insulting to your audience’s intelligence, and intensely childish. I know it’s been asked time and time again, but where the hell is Bill Loving in all this? Or did he also give the OK to post 500 words of whining and paranoid opining? But bravo on setting the journalistic bar so very, very low.


(You may now commence with your rambling ad hominem attacks against me.)


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Not needed, you’ve said enough for intelligent people to understand you


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Only drunk driver case that I have seen where the cops picture is shown instead of the perps. CCN shows other peoples pictures when they are arrested why not now?


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Karen should take this to a full jury trial so Officer Walsh can be questioned on the stand.


I’d like to see the SLOPD statistics on this one and Officer Walsh’s patterns of law “enforcement”.


Yea, a polarizing News Reporter that is arrested with a .06 DUI at a traffic stop from an agency and government that she has written many articles against is not ringing right.


Sounds like retaliation at best or worse, heading back to prohibition. Maybe Officer Walsh could have just been extra zealous that night of his interpretation of what “PUBLIC SAFETY” means. I mean we can’t have all these negative reports affect or egos.


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Karen should take it to a full trial so that the tourists who come to SLO County for wine-related events know they will get arrested for a 0.1 blow on a breathalyzer.


Whomever is behind this ridiculous arrest really did not think through the ramifications to our local wine industry and the resultant impact its new policy has on city and county coffers.


In fact, it sounds like a complete doofus is behind it.


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You are confused on the standard. A 0,1 BAC is above DUI, and a 0.06 is within a grey area that can very well get one a DUI. Here’s a link:


http://dui.drivinglaws.org/california.php


For anyone with a commercial license it’s 0.04 for a DUI; for anyone under 21 it’s 0.01. I personally happen to know many SLOPD officers and I can pretty much guarantee that none of them give two poops for Adam Hill or are “targeting” Karen Velie. She had a drink, or more likely a few, and got behind the wheel. Even her supporters say in this article that she was drinking. That won’t help her in court, by the way. She took a chance and she lost. Time to pay the piper. I’m open to conspiracy theories, but this one is really, really stretching. That’s my opinion.


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My typing mistake…I meant 0.01.


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Karen didn’t blow a .01, she blew a .06, and that’s not why she was arrested. She was pulled because she was driving her car erratically, and she was arrested because she couldn’t pass the field sobriety tests she was given. Walsh’s comment wasn’t that he would arrest anybody who blew even a .01, but that he would arrest anyone who blew a .01 that wasn’t able to operate their motor vehicle safely.


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Did Walsh, or did he not, say he would arrest someone for a 0.1?


Locals know how screwed up our local police agencies are. The people who will be caught in this” new standard” are the tourists, many of whom come here for wine-related events.


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No, he did not, according to this very article. He said that he would arrest HER, even if she had only blown a .01. If you can’t drive your car safely and you have alcohol in your system, you’re getting arrested. How can you be opposed to that? How can you be opposed to taking an unsafe driver off the road?


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Again, please provide your reference for your claim that Velie failed a field sobriety test.


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You need to re-read the article, it does not say that


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Here is the quote from Karen as copied from this article:


“he would have arrested her even if she had a blood alcohol level of as little as .01, Velie said.”


Walsh said he would arrest her, he didn’t say he would arrest anyone. It’s a matter of conjecture whether he was referring to her and her specific condition or if he routinely arrests people for a .01BAC. Since Karen is clearly over 21 and we haven’t heard of adults being arrested at a .01% (that would surely be a very big deal) then one would have to assume that he was talking about Karen specifically. The question is, what was it about Karen that would cause him to arrest her no matter what her BAC was? Maybe her speech impediment, did he mistake that for slurring due to intoxication?


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@MURPHTHESURF: “She was pulled because she was driving her car erratically, and she was arrested because she couldn’t pass the field sobriety tests she was given. Walsh’s comment wasn’t that he would arrest anybody who blew even a .01, but that he would arrest anyone who blew a .01 that wasn’t able to operate their motor vehicle safely.”


———-


A reference for your claims, please.


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It’s all IN THIS ARTICLE. She said herself that she couldn’t pass one of the field sobriety tests (I question this accuracy as well, being that they don’t actually tell you which tests you’ve completed successfully or failed…); and again, he said that he would have arrested HER even if she had blown a .01.


If you’re going to start calling for annotated references, I’d like to see them from all of the conspiracy theorists as well.


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Please provide the quote from the article that states that (quoting you, Murphthesurf), “She said herself that she couldn’t pass one of the field sobriety tests…”


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It doesn’t say that in the article, you are just assuming facts not in evidence.


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Thank you, isoslo.


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Ahhh, technically you’re correct. It was in Karen’s OWN WORDS on the Dave Congalton show that she failed one of the FST’s.


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Sorry, I’m not going to believe your recollections of an audio program when you couldn’t even get correct the contents of an article that all you had to do was scroll up to verify.


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Listen to it yourself, then. If you choose to be willfully ignorant of available information, I’ve got no interest in pursuing a conversation.


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Karen said that she couldn’t pass the part of the test that required her to stand on one leg for a designated period of time. The fact is that many people can’t stand on one leg for more than a few seconds.


I just tried it and I couldn’t go longer than 20 seconds without having to wiggle around to maintain my balance and I don’t drink. I also had to wiggle my shoulders in the first 3 seconds to stabilize the point of balance for the anticipated longer haul.


Fact is: Not all sober people can stand on one leg without using their shoulders or arms to balance for long. .


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There are a lot of very interesting and insightful comments presenting differing points of view on this story. What keeps coming through to me as I read them is the concept of “selective enforcement”. The “powers that be” in this county are infamous for ignoring the law when it doesn’t suit their purposes, and using it as a weapon when it does.


It would be interesting, if such statistics are available, to learn what was done in similar traffic stops in SLO. We got some idea of that from Mr. Brennler’s comments regarding his experiences as a police officer, but actual statistics would be much more powerful.


It would also be interesting to know if police officers and sheriff deputies routinely patrol outside of local wineries, restaurants and bars and make an effort to stop emerging patrons on suspicion of DUI. This would certainly not make the business owners happy. As someone commented, most of the people on wine tasting tours would probably qualify as DUI under the cited .01 blood alcohol rule that was used against Karen.


Bottom line: Statistics and hard facts could be the most powerful weapon in this case.


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Not many followed or arrested after leaving a Rodeo where 90 percent leaving are driving DUI…! ! !


I asked two Sherriff’s Deputies about that at the Coarsegold Rodeo and they told me that if they don’t see or know that a person is drunk then it isn’t their business. In other words they were happy with their overtime checks coming in the mail and can’t be bothered unless someone runs their vehicle off the road or causes an accident. Then they’ll arrest them if drunk. Up in the mountains of Madera drinking and DUI driving is rampant.


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Correx: Brennler (nailed by autocorrect)


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For one thing, this CCN blog, or whatever it is, is so lame, the cops probably don’t even know about it. For another, if she failed a sobriety test, she failed it. As far as .06 or .08, how about, DON’T DRINK AND DRIVE? Jesus Christ, the conspiracty theorists, someone connecting this to the 2 cops getting arrested at the border? Get a grip. “But I talked to her and she didn’t seem intoxicated”: Bullshit. “She taught me bridge, she seemed OK.'” More bullshit. Say she ran into you or your significant other, while “only” at .06. Would you be crying about it being unfair and that she was being picked on? And .06 is more than one glass of wine.


All you have to do is watch TV, listen to the radio, pay attention. Lots of Public Service Announcements, Don’t Drink And Drive. And this is going to cost her a load of money, whether some hotshot attorney to try and beat it, or just manning up, admitting it, and paying the fines, and doing the classes and whatnot. If she blew an .06, she was STILL IMPAIRED. I just can’t believe some of you people defending, “She was only .06.” I have no doubt they gave her a sobriety test, and she failed, or was borderline, then came the breathylizer, then the handcuffs.


If she had just paid attention to the PSAs, she would have gone on her way home that night. You don’t HAVE to drink.


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For another, if she failed a sobriety test, she failed it. As far as .06 or .08, how about, DON’T DRINK AND DRIVE?

———————————-

Good point. There is no mention in the article of why she was stopped or how she performed on the sobriety test. If this wasn’t a set up and she truly did give the cop reason to stop her and truly did fail a sobriety test–especially if it was filmed then that’s an entirely different story.


The devil is in the details right?


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Only if you, also, are arrested for a 0.1 blow on the breathalyzer.


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Bla,bla,bla..news flash..if SLO county was serious about nailing drunks on our roads, then every wine tasting facility would be out of business and the drunk tanks would be packed on a nightly basis. But thats O”tay cause we wouldn’t wanna tarnish our little hypocritical image of perfect now would we?


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Well, I think, as responsible citizens, we should let potential tourists coming to our area for wine-related events that the local police officers are handing out a DUI for a 0.1 blow on a breathalyzer.


If you want to get this BS stopped, take it to the people who can deal with it…the local police agencies–who get their marching orders from the local government agencies they serve–who get their marching orders from business interests, especially the local wine-industry which is served so loyally by our county government that they let the Paso groundwater basin march into overdraft without doing a dammed thing.


THAT is how much power the wine industry has in our county.


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Then the establishment that gives the alcohol, winery, bar, restaurant is an accessory to a crime, knowing damn well it’s going to take a vehicle to get home, while there is not enough taxi cab, limos or designated drivers to get them there! The only establishment I know that provides a ride to it’s patrons if needed in Pine Street Saloon but, I’m sure you have to have more than a .06 to get a ride in their limo.


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This is literally the dumbest thing I’ve read all week. Congratulations.


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it’s just a technical opinion, don’t get your panties in a bunch.


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@BORIS:


1. “If she blew an .06, she was STILL IMPAIRED.” Is the limit still 0.8, or has it been changed?


2. Please provide a reference for your supposition that she failed a field sobriety test.


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An arrest is REQUIRED at .08; this doesn’t mean that an arrest is prohibited for anything lower. Your supposition that you can be driving with an up-to .07999999 BAC as erratically as you’d like and be within your rights is incorrect.


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There is no mention in the article that she was driving erratically. Again, what is your source?


There is mention in the article that Velie had been teaching a bridge class up to when she started driving, that people (including a doctor) at the bridge class said she was not impaired, and that she talked to most of the people after the arrest who all said she did not at all appear to be impaired.


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Did the people at the bridge class observe her driving her motor vehicle? Are those same people trained specifically on how to identify an intoxicated driver? Did those people breathalyze her or administer FST’s on her?


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Irrelevant question as I was discussing the people at the bridge session.


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BMax—I don’t think I’m “cozying up” to Debbie Arnold and COLAB. I allowed them to participate in our on going conversation about water and North County–just like I did the folks from Pro Water Equity. By the way, Sarah Christie and Sue Harvey take up the issue Friday at 4:05. Are they liberal enough for you? Hope so.


I thought Mrs. Seastrand was quite eloquent today in her defense of Karen and CalCoastNews, deploring the rise of smear tactics against those, like Karen, who question the establishment.


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Rich, Dave, very rich.


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Homer — I remember you way back when, when you were at the top of your game, before all the sadness swept in to your personal life. It’s sad to see you now spending your days like this–reduced to being so negative and making one cynical, caustic post after another on this site. Of all the people who post on CCN, you especially are in a position to help Karen get the job done. She could benefit from your experience, your knowledge. You could do all of us who believe in Karen, Dan, and Josh a huge service by getting involved in the effort at CCN and taking a more positive role. Come back to the fight, “Homer.” This town has changed so much, the climate has turned so toxic, since the days of Mitch Cooney and Paul Floyd. I know Karen would welcome you and I think you’d feel a lot better about yourself if you did.


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You know, that would be great if what Karen was helping. But she really isn’t . She takes partial truths and tries to make facts. She takes peoples sides without finding the entire story. Why do you think nothing comes of if? If there was stealing, let me tell you, Biz would be the first to let the person go. Biz has done nothing buy fight for the poor, and the children for almost 40 years. All Karen does is reach out to the people suspended from Prado and the ones who are not working there due to being asked to leave. If you knew the truth about WHY the people were fired or let go or quit BEFORE they were let go, you would WANT them out of CAPSLO. THEY would be the ones who miss treat the clients. That is why the law suit would have been great. It would have exposed, it would have allowed Dee to talk about the people she can’t say a word about now. Of course you don’t want that, do you Dave? Because you are one of the perpetuators of lies.


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I’m not going to debate someone who calls himself “Truth Fairy” and hides behind that moniker. Identify yourself publicly and let’s see what bias you might have in relationship to this story. There could be a thousand reasons why Biz wouldn’t discipline Dee–I’ve heard several legitimate ones over the years. The Brennler lawsuit was ridiculous on so many levels, the first of many legal victories to come for Karen and company.


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Dave, I think it is fair to point out that you state you are “not going to debate” and then you proceed to debate. So, in truth, what you are saying is you are not going to listen or respond to rational arguments that counter your viewpoint, but you will add more comments to try to bolster your argument.


Secondly, your tired technique of trying to marginalize people who use nom de plumes is weak and transparent and suggests you lack adequate foundation for your viewpoints and fall back on denigrating people for remaining anonymous, even though that is a common and accepted part of participating on such forums. I think you owe Truthfairy an apology. And you will like owe a HUGE apology to Officer Walsh.


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Thank you. WiserGuy.


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Truth fairy unless you are Dee Torres, Biz, or the personnel manager of CAPSLO, tell us why you have information on why people were fired? So if someone is let go, CAPSLO gossips about the reasonings? That doesn’t look too good for any of you!


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False argument. It isn’t about how “liberal” or “conservative” the commenters are. It is about their stance on the future of the Paso groundwater basin, which is currently in a state of overdraft and–thanks to the political power of the tools like Arnold and COLAB–is not very likely to be salvaged.


BTW, IMO, the latest Paso GW basin map (done by GEI to demonstrate differences in GW elevations between 1997 and 2013), is going to look like the ‘good-old days” when the the map for 1997 to 2014 is delivered next August.


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IDK I think Gibson cheating on his wife for many years, lying, and showing very poor character is far worse than .06 and he’s still there. He destroyed lives, she didn’t.


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No, but she could have killed someone. What if DEE, or Adam was arrested on a .o6? Then it would be ok, right?


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I think if an officer pulls either one of them over after a social function and requires them to blow, yea I do. I do think they would blow. Especially Gibson. That red face of his isn’t chronic sunburn. I’ve followed a very well know public official home to safe guard him from getting pulled over and that he got home safe, so yea most of them drink and drive with .06 I’m sure .08


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My comment was directed at truth fairy!


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If you say so, it must be fact!


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