LEESBURG, Fla — The Leesburg city manager says there was nothing nefarious about a traffic stop where an officer chose not to arrest a Lake County deputy suspected of driving under the influence.
The city manager and police chief are defending the officer, although they say he needs more training and will get it.
When asked if he had any concerns about the officer’s actions seen on the police video, Leesburg city manager Al Minner said, “My concern is I don’t think the story did police work justice, and I don’t think what the public understands is the judgment that they have to do on a day-in day-out basis.”
Police Chief Joseph Iozzi was also at the interview but did not speak on camera and let his boss do the talking.
Minner went on for a chunk of the 10-minute interview criticizing the media and 9 Investigates’ report that raised questions about the traffic stop.
A Leesburg officer pulled over Preston Leonard for driving 17 mph over the posted speed limit in his unmarked Lake County sheriff’s deputy pickup truck. Police video shows Leonard immediately held out his business card, alerting the officer that he was a deputy.
“You reversed and almost hit my vehicle. You been drinking tonight,” the officer asked the deputy, who responded “no” twice.
The video shows the deputy’s department-issued vehicle just inches away from the Leesburg officer’s patrol car.
The Leesburg officer called a sergeant, telling him he can’t smell alcohol because his nose is stuffed up. That supervisor never showed up at the scene, which the chief said he should have.
The officer described what he could over the phone, saying, “He has slurred speech and his eyes are a little watery and his eyes are red, not the eyeballs but underneath.”
The city manager said he saw the video too.
“He assumed that that person was drinking. There were initial signs that that person was drink, but at the end of the day, they made the judgment call, as every police officer has to do, whether their judgment is going to stand up in the court of law,” he said.
When asked if it is normal to use that sort of discretion with a suspected drunk driver on the road, Minner answered, “It happens, yes.”
About nine minutes into the stop, the Leesburg officer again asked the deputy about his behavior, saying “Are you sure you haven’t been drinking tonight? Want to do a field sobriety test to suppress my thought of you drinking?” Leonard replied, “No, sir, no. I’m going straight up 452.”
Leonard had already called someone to give him a ride home, even before the officer asked if he had someone who could pick him up.
At that time, another Leesburg officer was on the scene who questioned why he’s having someone pick him up if he’s OK.
9 Investigates shared the raw video to attorney Kendell Ali, who’s defended thousands of DUI cases. He said he’s seen drivers arrested on substantially less suspicion.
“You’ve got all of the factors that a normal officer is looking for to arrest someone, OK? Even the fact that they chose not to do the field sobriety exercises. Now on a normal stop, someone would have been asked to exit that vehicle. He didn’t choose to take it a step further,” Ali said.
9 Investigates told Minner “Most people looking at that video would suspect that there was some sort of favoritism in this case because that might not otherwise happen to an everyday citizen.”
“The media continues to go down this foxhole of favoritism. What happened at the end of the day was an officer pulled somebody over who was a deputy. There was a significant question about whether or not they were drinking. It turned out they were, and the officer’s judgment was correct,” Minner said.
The Lake County Sheriff’s office opened an internal investigation and immediately uncovered the detective had been out drinking at Clermont National with other deputies in that department-issued truck. The investigator stated Leonard’s irrational decision was deficient and a dangerous judgement, which consequently caught the attention of Leesburg police, who stopped him for suspicion of DUI.
If the deputy had been arrested, he would have been compelled to take a breathalyzer test. Had he refused, his license would have been suspended under Florida law, and that would have also put his law enforcement certification in jeopardy.
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