To Swerve and Protect

A Minneapolis police officer was arrested last week on DWI charges after a motorist called police to report a car swerving erratically near the corner of Medina Road and County Road 101 in Plymouth.

MPD officer Jeffrey Pennaz, 36, was pulled over by Plymouth and Medina police and directed to pull into a nearby church parking lot. The police complaint reads like a booze-soaked mad lib(abtion): Ten Blue Moons. Four in the afternoon. Two kids in the car. On their way to go hunting.

Pennaz declined to participate in field sobriety tests. He was so shitfaced—bloodshot eyes, alcoholic odor, the works—the officer booked him on probable cause. A full two hours later, he blew a .21, almost three times the legal .08 limit.

Plymouth Deputy Chief Dan Plekkenpol says the time span between the arrest and breath test was not unusual.

“Every case is a little different,” he says. “A lot of factors go into play.”

Pennaz was charged with a DWI and one count of careless driving.