SNEEZY VS. DOPEY

The Unswerving Pursuit Of One Unlucky Driver. As Told To Tony Ortega

The KC Strip is the sirloin of Kansas City media, a critical cut of
surmisin' steak that each week weighs in on the issues of the day,
dictating its column to Pitch managing editor Tony Ortega.

The Strip this week has a heartwarming tale about the power of faith
over science.

There's been a lot of carping around here lately about how rational
thought is getting a raw deal from those of our humble citizens who
believe in a higher power. The evolution professors are bellyaching
in Kansas, and Missouri scientists are squawking about limits on
their embryo research.

It's as if these book-learning types can't get it through their thick
heads that sometimes you just have to believe something, no matter
what the evidence says to the contrary.

Take the case of Stan Willcutt, for example.

Stan is a 40-year-old Lee's Summit construction worker with the
ailments of a man twice his age. Bad ankles. Bad knees. A back so
screwed-up that he recently threw out a disk just because he sneezed.

Willcutt has been buried in ditches during two construction
accidents. He's been dropped on his head, leaving one eye permanently
wacky. And lord knows what happened to his teeth, because he doesn't
have any upper choppers, which makes his speech sort of slurred.

Still, he's got to make a living, so he continues to work in heavy
construction, digging sewers, but he goes to a chiropractor a couple
of times a week to have his back worked on.

On April 7, he was returning from one of those appointments, driving
down Douglas Street, when he felt a sneeze coming on.

He tensed up his back, preparing for the damage that might be
imminent, and then let go a big kerchoo.

The force of it wasn't enough to throw out his back, but it was so
painful that he swerved his car, and his front-left tire clipped the
center median.

After correcting his car, Willcutt realized that his collision with
the curb had caused a flat tire. So he pulled over, jacked up the car
and started to put on the spare.

That's when Lee's Summit police showed up.

Officers told Willcutt that they'd received a report of a drunk
driver who had swerved and hit the street's median.

Willcutt explained what had happened and said he hadn't had a drink
all day. In fact, Willcutt says, after he was popped for a DUI 20
years ago, he stopped drinking entirely.

Willcutt told police he'd ingested neither alcohol nor drugs, but the
officers asked him to take a field sobriety test anyway.

Willcutt says he told the officers that, with his bad knees and back,
there'd be no way he could stand steadily on one foot or walk in a
tight, straight line.

And just as Willcutt predicted, according to officer Matthew Miller's
report, Willcutt performed poorly on the test -- and displayed slurred speech.

At that point, Willcutt could see that his explanations were having
no effect on the police officers, so he requested a breathalyzer test.

His police report indicates exactly what he predicted it would: His
blood-alcohol content measured 0.00 percent.

Still, the officers arrested Willcutt and took him to jail, where he
gave a urine sample.

The sample was tested for amphetamines. The result was negative. It
was tested for barbiturates. Also negative. Benzodiazepines.
Negative. Cannabinoids. Negative. Cocaine. Negative. Ethanol.
Negative. Methadone. Negative. Opiates. Negative. Phencyclidine.
Negative. Propoxyphene. Negative.

This meat patty doesn't even know what half of those things are, but
it knows enough to see that the Lee's Summit Police Department had a
big fat nothing against Willcutt.

Now, this tenderloin believes that if Lee's Summit were a town that
fell for the kind of claptrap coming from scientists and other
edumacated types, its law enforcers might be tempted to believe that
these scientific tests, combined with Willcutt's medical history,
established with reasonable certainty that Willcutt wasn't drunk or
high. He was just an inarticulate, battered construction worker who
couldn't walk a straight line if he wanted to.

But that is not how people of faith think.

And if there's one thing Lee's Summit city prosecutor Rachel Brown
has faith in, it's that her office will get its man. Brown has so
much faith in the Lee's Summit police, she tells the Strip that a
0.00 breathalyzer and a negative urine test aren't going to keep her
from prosecuting Willcutt -- who, with his ancient prior, could be
looking at a real penalty.

Brown says she can't comment on Willcutt's case per se, but speaking
generally, she says, "If the prosecutor believes there's enough
evidence, we go ahead and file a case." And that's just what she's done.

Willcutt is due in court on July 14.

But with all of the cases Brown must handle (aren't we supposed to be
in something of a crime wave at the moment?), the Strip wondered why
she would bother with a case in which the scientific evidence was so
at odds with what police perceived.

"You have people driving under the influence [of substances] that
don't show up on the initial panel. We look at each case as a team at
the types of impairment -- stimulant, depressant, hallucinogen. Then
we ask the lab to test for a specific drug," Brown explains.

In other words, Brown plans to send out Willcutt's urine sample a
second, third or more times, whatever it takes until she gets back
the result she's looking for -- that Willcutt was fucked-up, just
like the police said.

Now that's faith in your police force.

Willcutt estimates that he's already out about $1,000 paying for his
legal help in the case, an expense he can ill afford. Meanwhile, a
scientific type might accuse Brown of wasting the money and resources
of Lee's Summit taxpayers when there must be other cases with better,
more objective evidence.

But hey, sometimes you have to ignore the facts and believe in the
power of faith.