Golf Stories: A Tale of Two Drinkers
by digby
Golf is such serious business that the police don’t take any chances. Drunks on the course must be dealt with by using the full force of the law, including 50,000 volts and a charge of “resisting arrest without violence” (which is a new one on me.)
A 36-year-old man attending the second round of The Players Championship was subdued by a Taser on Friday.
Travis Parmelee, of Jacksonville, was charged with disorderly intoxication and resisting arrest without violence, said St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Dave Messenger.
Messenger said course marshals notified officers that Parmelee was yelling at players and being belligerent near the 11th hole. Officers responded and attempted to calm Parmelee down, but they said he became more combative.
They tried to take Parmelee into custody, but he resisted and was Tasered once.
“He was at the point where it was time for law enforcement to step in,” Messenger said. “Our goal is to escort people off the property, but it was clear he wasn’t going to go with us.”
Parmelee pulled away as officers tried to put him into a golf cart, Messenger said, prompting one to touch him with a stun gun. Messenger said it was clear Parmelee had been drinking.
Well the man did “pull away” so he deserved to be shot through with electricity — whatever it takes to keep the golf game from being disturbed. We just can’t have that kind of disruption in public.
Drinking and golf don’t mix. Drinking and driving,however, if you happen to be a world class golfer, is not a problem:
Minutes after Tiger Woods crashed his Cadillac Escalade into a tree, his wife Elin told police that he had been drinking. To the paramedics and cops on the scene, there was little question that Woods—who was asleep and snoring in the street—was impaired. “I would bet everything I own that he was not fit to drive,” says one of the officers who investigated the case. “But I’ll never be able to prove it, because our hands were tied. The powers that be didn’t want to tangle with Tiger; they just wanted the situation to go away.”
[…]
Police say they believed that they had enough evidence to subpoena Woods’ blood from the hospital, a routine process that occurs hundreds of times per day in Florida. They felt they could make a strong case for probable cause, and were sure that the State Attorney’s Office would agree. But officers were stunned to learn that the State Attorney was unwilling to subpoena the blood-test results. Although a spokeswoman for the office says that Woods’ celebrity status played no part in the decision, officers say that Woods’ fame—along with his high-powered legal team—protected him from being charged with a DUI.
Trooper Joshua Evans submitted a Request for Investigative Subpoena, asking for access to Tiger’s blood results from Health Central Hospital. In the narrative section of the request, Evans wrote, “The driver lost control of his vehicle, crashed and was transported to the hospital. A witness stated that the driver had consumed alcohol earlier in the day and the same witness removed the driver from the vehicle after the collision. Also, the same witness stated that the driver was prescribed medication (Ambien and Vicodin). Impairment of the driver is also suspected due to the careless driving that resulted in the traffic crash.”
Less than an hour later, Trooper Evans received his answer: Assistant State Attorney Steve Foster, head of the State Attorney’s Office Intake Division, denied the request. At the bottom of the form, he scrawled, “Insufficient information provided to lawfully issue subpoena.”
The refusal of the State Attorney’s Office to issue the subpoena irritated many of the officers within the Florida Highway Patrol. “I have gotten subpoenas issued with a lot less evidence than that,” said one of the officers involved in the case. “I don’t know why the subpoena wasn’t issued. I really don’t. All I know is that everything was done by the book, and I believe that subpoena should have been issued.”
Officers were further rankled when the golfer repeatedly refused to meet with them after the accident. For four days, they were denied access to Woods. Inside the precinct of the Highway Patrol, officers asked each other what Woods had to hide. But without any evidence of impairment, the FHP had no choice but to give Woods a routine traffic citation.
On Tuesday, December 1, troopers were finally able to meet with Tiger at his Isleworth home. Flanked by his lawyer and his agent, Tiger politely answered the officers’ questions and even lifted his shirt to show them his torso and abdomen. Officers observed that Tiger had a fat lip from the incident, but no other visible injuries. They issued him a $164 ticket for careless driving, which he signed and paid during the meeting. Legally, the case of Florida vs. Tiger Woods was closed.
They may be kvetching now that they weren’t allowed to do their jobs, but if it had been an ordinary citizen they probably would have tasered him to “wake him up.”
This story certainly illustrates the fact that our two tiered system of justice is in perfect working order.
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