Official Line on Hartford DUI Checkpoint Story Grows Worse. Police Endangered Motorists in Violent Zone.

The Hartford Police Department’s explanation of its last minute change Friday of a  DUI checkpoint where people got charged for being drunk from State Street near the state Democrats’ annual fundraising dinner to high crime Park Street grew more convoluted this afternoon. Veteran department public information officer Nancy Mulroy caviled over a headline of CTCapitolReport.com that included Mayor Pedro Segarra in it’s link.

Mulroy wrote, “I noticed your link entitled:  ‘Why did Segarra move the Hartford DUI roadblocks in front of the JJB?…’ which directs the reader to Kevin Rennie’s blog.  As the PIO for the HPD I did want to clarify for you that Mayor Segarra had no knowledge of or input into the decision to relocate Friday night’s DUI Enforcement Checkpoint.  That decision is and was solely Hartford Police Chief James C. Rovella’s, and was based on the potential for gun violence in the area they were redeployed and another area of the city.” That’s right, the Hartford Police Department’s explanation for moving the DUI checkpoint is that it wanted to create a line of motorists in a neighborhood where it believed an outbreak of gun violence was likely to occur. That’s stunningly irresponsible on its face. Even the attorneys for DUI charges agree that, if the police expected violence on Park Street Friday night, the last thing they should have done was set up a checkpoint that would cause a traffic jam of innocent motorists in the zone of maximum danger.

It’s also a tortured distortion of the purpose of a DUI checkpoint. Drivers are not to be used as decoys under the guise of a sobriety checkpoint. The outrage in the Park Street neighborhood out to begin to make itself felt.