As much as I would like to see Mayor Creepy bounced from office for his lies, sleeping w/a minor and destroying the publics trust. Let's not wrongfully accuse the guy of a crime when there is no competent "evidence" that he was drinking at the time of the crash.... Kinda like the swine flu hysteria...

The nature of the accident alone was far more than enough reason for the officer to suspect impairment and a proportionate effort to determine any.

With the witness telling the officer about the alcohol smell it should have been certain.

That effort should have, at the minimum included getting close to Creepy while questioning him to check for the smell of alcohol, and asking him if he had been drinking.
From what I have heard and read, the officer never approached Creepy as he should have, and never asked if he had been drinking.
He disregarded the circumstances and the eyewitness.
That, IMO, translates into a deliberate avoidance of that pursuit.

Especially when a bystander eyewitness told the police officer Creepy smelled of alcohol.

Now it's being spun as a routine and appropriate handling of an minor accident.

As if the initial crash, then pushing of the car through a parking lot and continued spinning the tires is normal and nothing suspicious?

All the (sympathetic) officer had to do was remain far enough away from Creepy to
establish plausible deniably that he smelled any alcohol and avoid asking Creepy any probing questions.

There's not a random person in the city that would have got such a distant and lax treatment at an accident scene like that.

Now there's two witnesses?

There should have been 4 with two officers on the scene.
But one didn't even get out of his car.
How courteous of him.

Brad Paisley - Alcohol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df53LWQuezQ

Four witnesses said they did not smell alcohol.

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2009/05/adams_says_he_had_nothing_to_d.html

But two did. And did the police even ask the mayor if he had been drinking? Apparently not. He should have been asked to take a breathalyzer test.

Recall just became more realistic. Should have been laying low and keeping out of the headlines. If Wheeler runs we got ourselves a whole new cityhall dynamic. Commissar Leonard might have to run for govenor rather than see his clout drop with Wheeler the new leader.

Five dollars says he doesn't come back from Belgium.

You know, while we are collecting signatures, let's do the City/County consolidation that should have happened 30 years ago. That would be a great way to solve the big stumbling block, which has always been which big shot has to take a departure or demotion. Consolidate and make Wheeler Executive. That would solve SO MANY problems.

Wheeler won't run. Multnomah County law says that serving elected officials who want to run for another office must resign first.

Ted could probably win if the recall is successful, but that's too big an *if* to resign from his position, I would think.

Adams clearly got illegitimate special handling well beyond simple VIP courtesy. But the suggestion by the head of the Police union that an officer unhappy with a Mayor's management decision would look for the slightest transgression to justify charges against him, and the casual acceptance of this as legitimate, is disturbing: "... the sergeant made it very clear that this is the mayor that just shut down his precinct," [the Police Union boss] said. "And so if there was even one iota of information that he could have done to legally jam the mayor up with a DUI charge, it would have happened." That's a fine exercise of discretion... And on the apparent facts of this situation, I suspect it's not true. Injustice tempered by Prevarication - a noble motto. More reasons to require a hand-off to the State Police or Sheriff in these cases (at least so long as Bernie sticks with his new career on the Soil Conservation Board or whatever.)

The police union guy was incredible. "We throw the book at people we don't like, and since we hate this guy and didn't charge him, he must be innocent." I guess that after you needlessly kill a couple of people, this is how your mind starts to work.

We need the truth about the Sammaquiddick Incident.

Let's be realistic here.

If you are a Police Officer who likes his job and is the first to respond to an accident involving an embattled mayor of Portland what would you do?

Let's look at how the Portland Police are treated in Portland. The top-spot of Chief is a political court similar to something out of French History. Sam Adams has risen to his position by being the best at this type of politics.

It's a no-brainer. Get the Mayor out of there and get back to your normal job. The one you want to keep.

And it is possible that Adams smelled of beer but wasn't drunk. He could have blown within the legal limit. But I guess we'll never know.

The quote above about the police was actually from Mayor Creepy

With the way the busies out in North feel about our beloved mayor closing their precinct, I'm sure they were all more than happy to look the other way on such a high-profile arrest.

The police union change their mind about the recall yet? Because I for one couldn't imagine that an arrest for DUII would have possibly helped that cause.

Yep, must be something more sinister, ol' Sam there must have the goods on those coppers, thats how he managed to get those particular ones sent out to take his statement.

Any of this sounding just a little bit flaky yet?

Puzzling that the bizarre details of the accident alone didn't lead the police to test for substances (including the sort that can't be smelled on people's breath). Fly unzipped AND underwear unbuttoned? Miss the brake pedal? Very fishy.

(I've known alcoholics who, from long necessity and much practice, can hide the signs of excessive drinking surprisingly well.)

Sam Adams APPEARED to be alone in that truck, and Adams has always been quick to capitalize on appearances.

Adams holds his cell phone to his ear while telling Helpful Passenger on the truck floor to stay down and wait, that he'll distract attention from the truck giving him a chance to slip out unnoticed.

The truck was in the adjacent parking lot and all eyes would have wound up on the injured victim and the mayor schmoozing and sweeping in the Car Toys lot. So that would have made it easy for Helpful Passenger to slip out unnoticed, satisfy his craving for a slurpee at the 7-11...

The Helpful Passenger theory could also explain the odd pedal slip, the unzipped AND unbuttoned state, and why Adams' vehicle sped 100 more feet to another parking lot before stopping.