Police officer arrested on DUI charge after driving the wrong way, report says
A Las Vegas police officer was driving the wrong way on Paradise Road last week when he was arrested on a DUI charge, according to a newly released report.
Garrett Spitzmesser, 25, was arrested Jan. 27 just east of the Strip and charged with a first-offense DUI and driving the wrong way on a one-way road, according to Las Vegas Justice Court records.
Spitzmesser was pulled over by the overnight watch commander, Lt. David Gordon, around 5 a.m. after Gordon heard a vehicle horn and looked up to see a black sedan traveling north in the southbound lanes of Paradise Road near East Harmon Avenue, according to an arrest report released Wednesday by the Metropolitan Police Department.
More than a page of the three-page report was redacted. The department took nearly five full business days to fill a request for the report, thought it typically takes one business day to deliver nearly unredacted police reports for people arrested on DUI charges.
Gordon wrote in the report that he could smell an alcoholic beverage on Spitzmesser’s breath and that the suspect’s eyes were glossy.
“When I asked him if he could perform (standard field sobriety tests) he asked me ‘is your body camera on?’” Gordon wrote in the report. “I stated ‘yes.’ He then stated ‘no’ and that he wants a lawyer.”
Spitzmesser also said he could not consent to a blood draw, according to the report.
Officers are required to turn their body cameras on while administering field sobriety tests, stopping a vehicle or conducting investigations before an arrest is made, according to an updated directive sent to all officers in June.
Spitzmesser is free on his own recognizance and is scheduled to appear in court on March 29, according to court records.
On Wednesday, a Metro spokesman said Spitzmesser remains “active” with the department, which hired him in 2017.
Contact Sabrina Schnur at sschnur@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0278. Follow @sabrina_schnur on Twitter.
