But Seriously . . .
McNamara might not tell you he’s a cop unless you’re under arrest, but he shouldn’t have to–an 18-year veteran and Park Forest detective sergeant, he may as well have C-O-P tattooed across his forehead. He might not tell you that he has a master’s degree in criminal justice, that he graduated from the FBI National Academy in 1994, or that he’s a four-time gold medalist in the World Police and Fire Games. But he will tell you more than you want to know about drunk drivers. One man poked himself in the eye while trying to pass the street sobriety test and immediately threatened to sue. Another vomited on McNamara’s new shoes and then asked, “Is there a problem, officer?” Yet another man crashed into his neighbor’s car and hid inside his own house; when McNamara and his partner came to the door, the man’s wife answered while her husband stood naked in the living room. “It couldn’t have been me, officer,” the man protested. “I couldn’t have been outside like this.”
“Maybe she couldn’t see,” someone suggests. McNamara reluctantly agrees. But suppose she smells like beer? “Maybe someone spilled it on her,” several people yell. Suppose her eyes are bloodshot?
“Here’s what a woman did to me one time,” he says. “Handed me her license and dropped it. Picked it up and dropped it. Picked it up, dropped it. Picked it up, dropped it. Finally she said, ‘Hell, you get it. I can’t.’”
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The street sobriety test is the most popular part of McNamara’s presentation. He runs Direese through the test, and she passes easily. Then he hands her a set of “Fatal Vision” goggles. They resemble a scuba mask, but the plastic lens is tinted and pebbled; it compromises the wearer’s sight and coordination as much as a blood alcohol content of .12 percent. Feet and hands aren’t where they appear to be, and the edges of the room are blurred, making it difficult to aim a handshake. The test not only shows the students how silly drunks look but demonstrates the extreme conditions under which some people will drive.
McNamara knows better than just to lecture kids. Preventing them from drinking may be nearly impossible, and teenagers often ignore talk of “bad life decisions.” Alcohol-related accidents are the leading cause of death nationwide for people between the ages of 16 and 24, and in the past year more than $12 million was spent treating youth for alcohol-related injuries at Illinois trauma centers. But those statistics may seem too abstract. Teenagers generally consider themselves invincible.
Only a few blocks from home, the driver nodded off. His foot depressed the accelerator, and the car hit a tree going 65 miles an hour. “The kid that was in the passenger seat got thrown headfirst into the tree, catapulted out of the car because he wasn’t wearing a seat belt.” He died, and the driver woke up in the hospital. “A few months after that he came over to the Park Forest police station on crutches, his leg broken in three places, wired together, pins, his left arm broken, his collarbone broken, cuts all over his face from the glass. Turned himself in to me. He was the driver and he was drunk and somebody died. He was charged with reckless homicide. He pled guilty last year, he was found guilty. And his lawyer did a good job and got him probation. So here’s a young guy with a conviction on his record for homicide. The kid told his lawyer, ‘I don’t want that. Go back to the judge and tell him I want to go to jail.’ He killed his best friend, but he still got probation.”
