Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 8, 1990 TAG: 9005080444
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: VICTORIA RATCLIFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Lt. John Sherman Barrett, 43, also was charged with refusing to take a blood-alcohol test. That case will be tried May 31.
General District Court substitute Judge E.C. Westerman fined Barrett $100 and gave him a 30-day suspended jail sentence. He ordered Barrett to attend Virginia Alcohol Safety Action Program classes and ordered his driver's license suspended for six months. But, Westerman said, he would not impose the license suspension because of Barrett's good driving record.
Barrett did not comment after the trial. His attorney, Gary Lumsden, said he and Barrett would discuss whether to appeal the conviction.
County Deputy Sheriff T.W. Kincaid testified that he stopped Barrett about 11:40 p.m. on Woodhaven Road at Thirlane Drive after watching Barrett follow another car closely and flash his high beams.
Barrett had glassy eyes and a mild odor of alcohol about him and failed several sobriety tests, Kincaid said.
Barrett was not carrying his driver's license, he said. When Kincaid asked him how much he had had to drink, Barrett replied that he'd had "probably more than he should have," Kincaid said.
Several of Barrett's friends testified that he had been with them that night at a poker game on Wildwood Road and that he'd had only two beers to drink.
Barrett said he had taken two allergy pills about 8 p.m. before going to the poker game. He said he hadn't eaten since breakfast because he had been ill with a sinus infection.
While he was driving home from the poker game, Barrett said, he began feeling as if he had been drugged, apparently from the combination of the pills and the beer he drank.
"I didn't feel like I was totally in control," he said. "I just wanted to get home and lay down. That's all I was thinking about."
Roanoke Police Chief M. David Hooper said Monday that he had not yet made any final decision about whether to take disciplinary action against Barrett. He said Barrett has accumulated a great deal of leave in his 20 years with the department and that he has been on leave since he was charged. "He is still off," Hooper said Monday.
Hooper has said that Barrett, the former head of the city vice squad, is a respected employee and has never been involved in any disciplinary action.
by CNB