Pop singer and public nuisance
Justin Bieber was arrested last week by the Miami Beach Police.
While the the #FreeBieber and #DeportBieber camps of the
Twitterverse were clashing harder than Ukrainians in the streets of
Kiev, information that contradicted the police report began to
trickle out. Now, Miami-Dade County appears to have quietly
dropped several of the charges against Bieber.
Last Thursday, Bieber was pulled over while driving a rented
Lamborghini. He was allegedly participating in a drag race with
rapper Khalil Shareif. The police report
states that the cars were moving at about “55-60 mph” in a 30
mph residential zone. An officer pulled the singer over and
“immediately smelled an odor of alcohol eminating (sic) from the
driver’s breath and bloodshot eyes. The driver had slow deliberate
movements and a stuper (sic) look on his face.”
Beiber repeatedly asked, “Why did you stop me?” and “What the
fuck did I do?”
After disregarding repeated instructions that he keep his hands
visible, the singer was arrested and charged with driving under the
influence, driving with an expired license, and resisting arrest
without violence.
A spokesman for department later added new details
during a press conference, claiming that “during the investigation,
Mr. Bieber made statements that he had consumed some alcohol, and
that he had been smoking marijuana, and consumed some prescription
medication.”
Yet, various reports and inconsistencies indicate that the cops
may have fudged some information.
The Huffington Post
highlights a few errors with police report. It “has marked
‘Known’ when it comes to ‘Indication of alcohol influence’ but
‘Unknown’ is the box checked regarding drug influence. So had
Bieber informed the police what he was on, they didn’t put it down
as such.” The Post also points out that the department had
a few other (less egregious) errors, such as marking Bieber as an
American citizen and mistaking his birthplace as Toronto instead of
London, Ontario.
The Miami Herald
writes that “Bieber’s breath test did not show any substantive
alcohol use. He blew .014 and .011, well below the legal limit.”
This raises some questions about whether Bieber’s car really reeked
of alcohol. As Reason‘s
Jacob Sullum and
Scott Shackford have covered in the past, police don’t always
accurately identify smells.
TMZ claims that “the place where Justin and Khalil rented the
cars attached a GPS device that also tracks speed,” and that “5
blocks before cops noticed them they were going 34 MPH in a 30 mph
zone. Blocks later, they were steady at 27 mph.” A surveillance
video released by CBS Miami corroborates this,
showing an underwhelmingly slow “drag race” and police
pursuit.
Several sources have noted that the case information listed on
the Miami-Dade County Clerk of Courts website lists
the charge of resisting arrest. This indicates that the county is
not pursuing the DUI and expired license charges.
For a different angle on Justin Bieber at Reason, read
Shikha Dalmia’s
article on immigration and watch Paul Detrick’s video
below:
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