Police Dispatch

From Cub Scout to Criminal

Arizona State Highway 83, Milepost 41

Feb. 25, 8 p.m.

A 60-year-old man and his older female friend (and former Cub Scout Leader) got in an argument on their way back from an outing in Bisbee, resulting in the man going to jail and the woman being arrested for drunk driving, according to a Pima County Sheriff's Department report.

About half a mile from the checkpoint, one sheriff's deputy encountered a middle-aged man walking on the side of the road. When he pulled over, the man started walking toward him, provided his identification card and tried to explain the situation.

He said he'd been spending time with an older female friend who long ago had been the leader of his Cub Scout group. He said he and this woman had gone to Bisbee for drinks and then dinner (and more drinks).

He claimed that this friend had always been critical of his romantic life—not approving of the women he dated—and that on the way back home on the highway, as she drove, she'd started "pestering him" about the women in his life, starting a small verbal argument in the car. Nothing physical occurred, he said, but by the time they arrived at checkpoint 43, he'd had enough of her "bitching" and exited the vehicle, deciding to walk by himself back to Tucson rather than endure his driver.

The deputy noted that "it would probably take him quite a bit of time to walk from where he was to there," and the subject agreed, saying "he figured it would take him quite a long time." But he evidently truly did plan to trek all the way back to town on the side of the dark highway.

Since it turned out that this man had three warrants out for his arrest, however, he was driven back to Tucson instead—to jail.

Meanwhile more deputies were down at the checkpoint, where the female friend's car battery had died after she was stopped. A Border Patrol agent reported that as her car was approaching the checkpoint, it had almost hit a traffic cone, and the driver had admitted to recently drinking wine. When she got out of her car, deputies saw that she'd peed her pants.

She backed up her male friend's story that they'd only been arguing verbally, adding that she'd known the man for 50 years and they were just friends. She didn't mention knowledge of his warrants.

Asked if there was any reason she couldn't complete field sobriety tests, she said, "Yes—knees and old" (referring to her advanced age and bad knees). But she then said, "Alrighty" and performed two of the tests anyway (failing). She was arrested for driving under the influence and dropped off at home.